


Knowing the Enemy

by Anonymous



Category: Voltron: Defender of the Universe (1984), Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abuse, Alpha Allura (Voltron), Alpha Pidge | Katie Holt, Alpha Shiro (Voltron), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst and Feels, Beating, Beta Coran (Voltron), Beta Matt (Voltron), Beta/Omega, Brotp, Crossdressing, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Domestic Violence, Eventual Relationships, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Fake Character Death, Flashbacks, Friendship, Genderfluid Character, Gun Violence, Hand Jobs, Hunk (Voltron) is so Pure, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron)-centric, M/M, Masturbation, Movie Reference, Musical References, Omega Lance (Voltron), Pan Shiro (Voltron), Samoan Hunk (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron) Can't Cook, Slow Burn, Supportive Coran (Voltron), Suspense, Texan Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-06-26 23:52:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 22
Words: 112,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15673812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Omegaverse based on the movie Sleeping With The Enemy: an omega in an abusive relationship flees his marriage by faking his own death. He runs far, finding himself among people who just want to help, but they don't know his past.His past, who is trying to catch up to him.





	1. Gilded Cage

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Omegaverse Genetics - One Theory](https://archiveofourown.org/works/766040) by [Diana Williams (dkwilliams)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dkwilliams/pseuds/Diana%20Williams). 



> First and foremost, please mind the tags and warnings. This is based on a movie with very triggering subject matter, and even though the entire middle act is in fairly calm surroundings, Lance is prone to flashbacks in this which means that I cannot in good conscience say that any text is safe from potentially triggering material. I'm putting a blanket warning on the entire thing to be on the safe side.
> 
> I started writing this way back before season six dropped. When I was watching season five of VLD, I noticed some of Lance's expressions really strongly reminded me of panning shots of the lead character in the movie Sleeping With The Enemy. It wasn't actually the first time I'd noticed the similarity in pensive expressions, but season five had a few moments where it was more pronounced. I got the notion that maybe this movie could be adapted with Voltron characters. I'm not the first person to want to adapt this movie and I probably won't be the last. There are maybe a dozen Bollywood adaptations, I think? Plus three novels by well-known Western authors that follow the same story beats, with two of those also being made into films. And of course the original film is based on a novel by Nancy Price, which I highly recommend if you can find a copy (it is out of print). I think the story is so compelling because it stays with the main character's mental and emotional journey. Even though the villain does return, it's never really about him at all. The driving force of the narrative is wanting the protagonist to be alright. The plot of this fic did eventually move away from the source material, though.
> 
> So, I had the lead character. I feel the need to point out here that the first character you meet in chapter one is VLD Lance, he just won't be using that name until chapter three, which is similar to how the other versions of this story went in which the protagonist changes her name after the first act. There will be a specific reason for the name, it won't be random. It is related to the reason why I also chose to tag 80s Voltron for fandoms. I'm also holding back on tagging some of the background pairings because those characters don't even appear until midway through the fic. I'll tag them when they show up. This can be categorized as a slowburn on all counts. The husband and the love interest in the other versions of this story have the characteristics that the husband is self-conscious but not self-aware, while the love interest is very self-aware but not a self-conscious person. My usual favorite pairings were not fitting those archetypes. Who fit better? The more I thought about it, the better I liked the answer. So that was how I wound up in rare pairs territory. 
> 
> I also wanted to try my hand at Omegaverse, a genre that fascinates me. It combines elements from biopunk and the novel of manners into this alchemical stew that is so open source in the way that every writer who approaches it adds something to it. I owe a debt to Diana Williams for the Punnett squares that I used as a jumping-off point when I was writing this fic.
> 
> Last but not least, I want to reassure that I am not taking the subject matter lightly. In fact, some of how I've interpreted it is based on my own experiences. One thing that I hope comes across is the head trip that happens in an abusive relationship. Writing this became an obsession. It's actually 21 chapters plus an epilogue, but the chapter formatting doesn't let me specify that so I just put 21 chapters. The whole work is complete. I'll post whenever I have some free time to edit and format a chapter. If you like to listen to music while reading, I recommend Jerry Goldsmith's score from the movie Sleeping With The Enemy. I listened to it a lot while I was writing.

 

Sunrise was the color of a fresh bruise, rays of red, purple and blue flowing like broken capillaries across the surface of the water and sand. In another few hours the young omega would be camouflaged against that sand, his clam diggers and popover shirt and the warm browns of his skin and hair blending in seamlessly.  
  
For now, he was content to enjoy the quiet dawn with his bare feet in the surf, forgoing the rake for the pleasure of pressing his toes under the sandy damp in search of hiding shellfish. The morning breeze brought with it a refreshing scent of salt and lifted the longer strands of hair off his neck and away from his face. Gulls and terns chirped and trilled as they wheeled around overhead. He could almost pretend his life was the one he’d daydreamed of as a starry-eyed teen.  
  
He caught movement out of the corner of his eye, a flap of dark fabric alien to this serene landscape. The breeze shifted just enough to carry across the potent musk of an alpha prime. He knew better than to acknowledge it directly. The alpha preferred to believe he always had the advantage of surprise and became vexed if ever disabused of that notion. He especially did not like being reminded that the omega had a keener sense of smell than he did.  
  
The omega felt a hard shell under the ball of his foot. He knelt to rake it up and drop it into the wire basket next to him on the beach.  
  
“Good morning Laurel.”  
  
That was not his name, not really. But it was his cue to look up, and to smile. “Good morning alpha.” The omega’s mother had named him Lorenzo. The alpha disliked the name and had chosen instead to call him by a variant that suited his own sensibilities. Lorenzo had chosen to answer to it as if it were a role he was playing on the stage of their marriage.  
  
He took note of the alpha’s single-breasted suit, because it was an anomaly in this setting, and because he was meant to notice. “What brings you to the beach in such fine haberdashery?”  
  
“An unexpected meeting with a client.” Sadak Sendak, the alpha, stepped into Lorenzo’s sphere of personal space to fondle a lock of the omega’s chin-length hair. “A pity I haven’t time to take you into the city with me. You’re overdue for a treatment.”          
  
He meant a keratin treatment. Lorenzo hated getting the treatments, the smell of formaldehyde stinging his nose and having to sit patiently as the beauticians gossiped above him and about him while they scorched his curls into polished fragile panes like glass.  
  
But for now, he was spared a commuter flight into Boston and all that entailed. “What do you think of paella for dinner tonight?” He had been looking forward to it ever since finding out they were coming to the beach house for vacation while their seasonal family permit for clamming was still in effect.  
  
“We’re expected at Honerva’s dinner party tonight. Cocktails are at 6 o’clock sharp.”  
  
Lorenzo clutched the rake like a shield. Honerva was an alpha prime, married to another alpha prime, both of whom were senior partners in the firm where Sadak was senior counsel.  They were a formidably intimidating couple, their parties always packed with acquaintances like a block of steak knives. Lorenzo could have wished Sadak told him earlier that he would be expected to behave as a perfect omega for more than an audience of one tonight. He hoped his anxiety was only revealing what Sadak expected to find in his scent: a hint of bitter sharpness like herbs in a censer.  
  
“Don’t pout, lovely.” Sadak drew Lorenzo to his feet, sniffing the mark on his neck that never permanently took and always needed a fresh bite on roughly the same timetable as his hair needed straightening. “Do this one thing for me and you may dig fresh clams tomorrow.”  
  
“Yes alpha.” Lorenzo knew the bargain could be reneged upon if Sadak should happen to change his mind for any reason. He managed to find a gentle smile to adorn his face before Sadak turned his chin up to look into it.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lorenzo carefully arranged his swallowtail shirt behind him as he sat in front of the vanity mirror to check his hair and cosmetics. The shirt was white as a quartz sand beach, buttoned up the front with a high, close collar. Sadak did not like others to see his mark when it was faded to bisque.  
  
The natural binding rune of a claiming mark was, for most dynamics, a bite that would only bond when reciprocated. In reciprocated cases it would not fade unless one of the pair perished, or if the couple began to drift apart, which was an improbable occurrence between a pair whose bites had taken, but not unprecedented. Microbiologists had been studying the exchange of DNA and microorganisms involved in the bite for decades, but had yet to turn hypotheses into workable theories. As far as popular culture was concerned claiming marks still seemed like magic, and the empathic phenomena associated with them had yet to be explained in any scientifically provable way.  
  
A mark that had not faded could not be overwritten. Alphas alone were able to put an unreciprocated mark on unclaimed people of other dynamics, at least temporarily. It lasted longer on omegas than on betas but if it was unwanted it would eventually fade for either dynamic. For an alpha’s mate to wear a faded mark in public invited unseemly speculation and, in olden days, a challenge.  
  
There was little danger of any of Sadak’s coworkers daring to present him with an open challenge. Lorenzo just had to look decorative and stay alert. White cigarette pants and smoking slippers completed the look of pristine idleness that Sadak preferred him to project. He could pair the outfit with the baroque pearl earrings that Sadak had gifted him on their honeymoon. He was opening the jewelry box to take them out when Sadak loomed in the mirror behind him.  
  
“That looks wonderful on you,” he said, resting his large hands on Lorenzo’s shoulders. The minty horehound note in his musk was strong tonight, overpowering the neroli and cypress cologne which he liked to layer over it. “White would not have occurred to me this close to Labor Day.”  
  
Socializing with his coworkers tended to bring out the most domineering traits in Sadak’s personality. Lorenzo had hoped to avoid them on this trip, but since they all vacationed on the same spit of land it was inevitable that he would have to endure their company again, as well as their effect on his alpha.  
  
“You were thinking of the blue?” It was a dhoti kurta set which Sadak had purchased for him while away on one of his ‘retreats’ and was one of the few semi-formal ensembles the alpha selected that met the omega’s wholehearted personal approval. It was comfortable, and it brought out the color of his eyes.  
  
“How you love that outfit.” Sadak’s hands tightened on Lorenzo’s shoulders. “One might almost think it reminded you fondly of being apart from me.”  
  
Lorenzo kept his face carefully blank, his body perfectly still. No reaction was favorable on such thin ice.  
  
“ **Tonight, you will wear black, and be my own Odile.** ” He put a note of command into it that made Lorenzo’s head ring.  
  
The black ensemble consisted of a monochromatic slim-fit tuxedo shirt and trousers, but instead of jacket and tie, it was worn with a corset and attached train trimmed in dyed ostrich feathers. It had a striking cut, showing off Lorenzo’s long limbs and graceful posture, and the high, tight flare of his ass due to a shorter sacrum than a beta male with a similar android pelvis would have. He wouldn’t be able to eat more than a few nibbles of food so long as he was wearing it.  
  
Lorenzo knew he was capable of throwing off the command if he focused on his own intentions. The bond was weak. Unfortunately, Sadak had other means of persuasion at his disposal, so there was really only one safe way for Lorenzo to answer.  
  
“Yes alpha.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Honerva Haggart-Galiyar herself welcomed them into her massive Shingle-style house, looking stylishly comfortable in a high-low dress of grey Tencel. “Sendak, simply marvelous to see you, you’re looking well.” She allowed him to kiss the air near her cheeks, not too close to her scent glands. “Laurel, you look lovely as always.”  
  
Lorenzo quietly thanked her and ducked his head, showing deference without offering an invitation to scent. Sadak expected exemplary behavior from him and enjoyed having his omega openly admired if it was to flatter him, but Lorenzo must never share that which was his alpha’s, not even by accident.  
  
It was a tightrope he walked for the rest of the evening, through cocktails which he sipped slowly so as not to lose his head, three courses of dinner artfully pushed around on the plate to make it look like he was consuming more than he was, and yet more drinks after dinner, again sipped at a glacial pace. Sadak stayed close to his side during cocktails and dinner, his forceful presence a warning against any alphas or confident betas who dared to say anything more to Lorenzo than ‘good evening.’ After dinner was more difficult because Sadak had helped himself to quite a few drinks by then and was letting loose with the other alphas in his firm.     
  
Lorenzo allowed himself to be carried along by a bevy of other omega spouses as they made a strategic retreat to one of the lower decks in the Galiyars’ house. Even amid these other birds of the same feather, Lorenzo stood out. Not for being the mate of a high-ranking member of the firm, or for being a male omega, or even for being pretty to look at – there was another omega, fiancée of a junior partner, who was a peacock among peahens compared to everyone else present.  
  
It was because he was an omega prime, the bearer of a polygenic mutation that allowed for an unusually constitutive expression of his dynamic. Possibly the only omega prime for several counties, definitely the only one in the entire house. His natural saffron and sweetgrass scent easily rose above the combined pheromones around him; even above the violet water he’d splashed on earlier that evening to try to tame it.  
  
Younger alphas and a few adventurous betas made ever more frequent passes close to the knot of omegas, dancing to the tasteful Quiet Storm playing from Bluetooth speakers in every room. They flitted past like hawks drawn to the fluorescence of Lorenzo’s scent, and then flew closer when they caught sight of Lyra, the statuesque brunette in the pink Grecian mini dress.  
  
Lorenzo laughed politely at a nervous joke told by another omega while surreptitiously scanning the deck to mark the locations of the exits. As his gaze drifted up towards a higher deck, he locked eyes with his own husband. Who knows how long he’d been standing there just watching. Sadak nodded discretely towards the French doors leading off the lower deck and into the house. Lorenzo nodded back that he took his meaning. He waited until Sadak disappeared through the single door leading out of the upstairs deck before murmuring “pardon me,” and taking his leave.  
  
Lorenzo opened the French doors to find Sadak descending the alternating stairs and flooding the narrow staircase with his scent. A tall blonde alpha who thought she was sneaking up on Lorenzo removed herself from the scene with haste as soon as she got a whiff of possessive alpha prime.  
  
Sadak greeted Lorenzo at the bottom of the steps with an aggressive scenting. “Have you had enough of socializing, lovely?”  
  
“Enough to last me the whole season, alpha.” He didn’t have to act much to make that sound heartfelt.  
  
Sadak laughed, and Lorenzo was reminded again what had first attracted him to the man years before, when they’d met at a college symposium on the topic of the built environment. His smile lent the diamond sharp angles of his face a rakish charm and relaxed his whole bearing. “Let’s go home.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lorenzo untied the laces on the back of his corset and took in a sweet deep breath. He made sure the laces were well loosened before attacking the hooks along the front busk, placing one knee on his vanity stool for better leverage.  
  
“Are you hungry?” he called out over his shoulder. He was starving. The beach plums he’d foraged while Sadak was in Boston (after having to set loose the clams) were washed and cooling in the refrigerator crisper.  
  
“Yes,” sounded much closer to his ear than he’d expected, and then suddenly he was being lifted off his feet as Sadak buried his nose in the tender notch where Lorenzo’s neck met his jaw. A guitar glissando in G minor started up from the sound system in the bedroom: Sadak’s favorite song.  
  
 ♬ _Time, it needs time, to win back your love again, I will be there…_   ♬  
  
There was a hand in his hair forcing his head back to meet a rough kiss, and Lorenzo had a moment to be glad that at least the alpha might fall asleep after, so he could sneak away and get some food, before he was flung down on Egyptian cotton sheets.  
   
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Dawn bloomed red like Lantana over the cold blue ocean. Lorenzo reflected on its significance as he sipped his coffee at the patio table on the balcony. Clamming should probably be put off for another day. He steeled his stomach for another bite of the Eggs Chesapeake he’d fussed over that morning while Sadak slept in. He would be expected to leave the last bite on the plate as proof that he was minding his figure, and in this case he didn’t think that was going to prove too hard. As much time as he’d spent on the dish he wanted to enjoy it, but it was smothered in hollandaise sauce, of which he had never been fond.  
  
Sadak had, mercifully, passed out shortly after popping his cork and christening Lorenzo’s belly. The alpha hadn’t knotted him since that first and only time on their wedding night, unable to tolerate the loss of control created by being physically tied to someone else for even a short while. He couldn’t even bear to spend his yearly rut in the same house with Lorenzo, every autumn coming up with excuses to send his omega to charm school or cooking school, or any school where he could simultaneously refine his homemaking skills and be babysat by well-paid administrators. Then Sadak would sequester himself away for three weeks in luxury spa resorts where rutting alphas could go for treatments like saunas and snake massages to reduce the urge.  
  
He sometimes wondered if Sadak realized that this refusal to knot or spend ruts together, along with forbidding Lorenzo to nest and imposing stringent dietary restrictions to keep him fashionably delicate, were the reasons he had gone into anestrus and thus never gotten pregnant in almost four years of marriage. Lorenzo certainly wasn’t going to be the one to apprise him. The thought of bringing an innocent child into this household chilled him to the marrow. He pulled his blue robe closer about himself with his free hand. Sadak was working out on the elliptical in the home gym, still going at it hard the last time Lorenzo had peered in on him.  
  
Perhaps he would have time to sneak some more beach plums. Sadak would want him to make jam as soon as he found out about them, but in the meantime, Lorenzo was eating the little fruits out of hand. He adapted readily to the tart flavor, having grown up eating kumquats harvested from a tree on one of the properties where his mother maintained the gardens. The owners had let her take home as many as she wanted, as they had no use for them outside of ornamental purposes.  
  
The snick of the sliding glass door opening behind him nixed any plans of sneaking food.  
  
“Omega, attend me.” The tone was gentle, as was the hand reaching down to pull him out of the patio chair, but Lorenzo knew this wasn’t a request with the right of refusal attached. He took the offered hand and padded biddably after the alpha as he was led into the master suite bathroom.  
  
“Tell me Laurel,” Sadak stood back, arms spread to encompass the room, “what is wrong with this picture?”  
  
Lorenzo spotted the implied issue immediately and rushed forward to refold and straighten the misaligned hand towels. “I’m sorry alpha, I don’t know how I could have forgotten.”  
  
Actually, he knew exactly how: he wasn’t the one who had messed up the towels in the first place, ergo his lack of awareness that they needed to be refolded. Previous altercations over this very same scenario had taught Lorenzo that Sadak would never own up to being the party responsible.  
  
“I’ll always be there to remind you.”  
  
Sadak followed this statement with a rumble of the sort that always comforted the omegas in the movies and on TV. Lorenzo tried to answer with a trill. It was feeble, as it usually was anymore. Sadak never commented on this. Going through the act, like a scene in a play, was the thing with him.  
  
Once Lorenzo had been released from the alpha’s presence, he wasted no time checking every possible spot where Sadak might have left him a teachable moment, not even bothering to put on clothes first. Sadak would be much less concerned with his omega’s dishevelment in his own house than for the house to be in a similar state.  
  
Lorenzo had just finished ordering the pantry supplies back into line infantry precision when Sadak strolled into the kitchen.  
  
“How are the dinner plans coming along?” Sadak asked. He had given himself time for a shower and to dress comfortably in chinos and a red camp shirt. His dark ash-brown quiff fell over his forehead in damp spikes instead of flowing straight back like when he styled it for work.  
  
Lorenzo mentally ran through household inventory at lightning speed, snatching ideas out of thin air. “We’re having pan-seared cod with lemon aioli, Bibb salad with shaken vinaigrette, and red potatoes with herbes de provence.” He watched the alpha carefully for his reaction and found nothing one way or the other in his mismatched eyes. “And I thought I’d make some of that sweet bread pudding you like for dessert.”  
  
That won a reserved smile. “Sounds delicious, I can hardly wait.” He meandered back the way he’d come.  
  
Lorenzo went to the window to watch him descend the plankway to the beach. Their new neighbor appeared to be engaged in a visual check of his keelboat, which he had docked at the pier shared by the two properties. The neighbor was certifiable if he was thinking of taking her out today. Or, what was far more likely, an inexperienced sailor who’d gone on a few runs and thought he knew more than he really did. That was dangerous. Just because the sun was out didn’t mean the weather would stay fine on the water.  
  
Down on the pier, the neighbor waved an arm towards their house and Sadak’s head automatically followed the motion. Lorenzo ducked back out of view of the panoramic windows. He still had work to do.  
  
He had accomplished rewashing all of the breakfast dishes and was in the process of putting on a pot for tea when Sadak returned, bringing with him a strong headwind of his own musk and a tail cloud of catkins and pine needles from a stranger.  
  
“Nice man, your doctor.”  
  
“Dr. Traylen?” Lorenzo didn’t think so, though he supposed the man was competent enough.  
  
He picked up the tea service tray. It would be nice to have tea in the sunroom when the water was ready. He had taken two steps in that direction when he realized what a non-sequitur his husband had just thrown at him. There was no good reason for him to have mentioned Dr. Traylen, he must have meant…  
  
“Oh! Do you mean our new neighbor is a doctor?”  
  
He turned and saw the orange corona in Sadak’s right eye at close range, which was all the warning he had before his vision went white and he was on the floor, the tea cups falling around him like shrapnel. He tried to push himself up, moaning and falling back as the room spun. The heel of the hand he’d used for leverage began bleeding from leaning his weight directly onto a shard of broken ceramic. His left brow started to throb.  
  
A pair of grey suede boat shoes swam into Lorenzo’s line of sight.  
  
“When was Dr. Ilvig in our house? Was it yesterday while I was in the city?”  
  
Lorenzo gritted his teeth against the pain receptors gradually coming back online to inform his brain of the soft tissue injuries along his right side. “I don’t know any Dr. Ilvig.”  
  
The shoes blurred; Lorenzo was hit with a blow to the stomach that knocked the breath out of him, made him cough and gasp. He instinctively curled into a ball. “I don’t know any Dr. Ilvig!” Tears began to leak out of the corners of his eyes.  
  
Sadak knelt beside Lorenzo, pulling him up into a sitting position even as he hissed and gave out an involuntary whimper. This to Lorenzo was the most frightening thing about these spells: how suddenly they could begin and then be over just as fast, like a bayamo. He tried so hard to learn to predict and prevent, yet could still be caught unawares.  
  
“Now you’ll pout.” Sadak pushed the long bangs away from Lorenzo’s tear-stained face.  
  
“N-no alpha, I won’t.”  
  
Sadak kissed him on the neck. “Your doctor has invited us for a night sail.”  
  
Lorenzo stiffened, he couldn’t help it. The neighbor was taking that masthead rig out tonight? And he expected passengers to get on board willingly? Who gave the nice doctor a pass on his safety course?  
  
Sadak, who had been raised in the landlocked state of Pennsylvania, mistook his perfectly rational reaction for a different kind of fear. “It will only be a short jaunt up the coastline. You have no need to fear the water. I will be there to protect you for the entire trip.”  
  
It was not the water that Lorenzo feared specifically. It was the things that lived in the water, and drowning. It just so happened that deep water was a predictive factor for both, and this was why he refused to get into most natural bodies of water. He had never been able to explain this to Sadak in a way that he could fully grasp.  
  
“I know that you won’t disappoint me, Laurel.” Sadak pressed a buss to the side of his head that was not pounding.  
  
Lorenzo said nothing.  
  
“I’m going into the village for a few things. Do you want me to bring back anything for you?”  
  
“No alpha.” His voice wavered with unshed tears but shaking his head ‘no’ was out of the question for at least another half hour.  
  
“Very well.” Sadak stood. “I’ll be back.” He did not offer to help his omega up off the floor.  
  
Lorenzo waited until he heard the Trackhawk’s V8 engine puttering out of the carport before hauling himself across the stone tiles to pick up all the pieces of shattered cups.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Cirrus unicus clouds formed commas across the sky with no words for them to organize, but Lorenzo read their meaning just the same. He’d seen this weather pattern before, from the deck of a rusty jon boat that should have never been deemed seaworthy.  
  
He stood barefoot on the beach in a cable knit cardigan over a cotton shift, hair and skin smelling of the products Sadak bought for his maintenance, their luxury scent temporarily suppressing his own. Nothing but top-drawer for a Sendak’s omega.  
  
The warm water of the shower had soothed some of his aches and a double strength acetaminophen had taken the edge off the rest. He had developed a higher than average pain tolerance over his years with Sadak. All visible signs of what happened earlier were hidden under his clothes except for the waterproof bandage on his left hand and a hint of a bruise at his hairline, which he would make sure to cover with makeup before meeting the neighbor.  
  
Sadak used to be more meticulous about striking only in easily concealed spots, and never in front of a window where anyone could see in. He seemed to care less and less about discovery every time, unraveling like a detonating cord. Lorenzo didn’t need his associate degree in Human Services to tell him that his situation was going from bad to worse.  
  
He turned from the horizon and fixed his eyes higher, to the post lights spread out at intervals in front of each property along the beach, two per pier and two per house. He stood on rippled sand under the glassy gaze of their beach house, and of two post lights. He cast his eyes down again, searching the detritus left by the tide… there. Two good-sized cockle shells. Perfect. He leaned down, wincing a little, and palmed one. Then he straightened, wound it up and let it loose.  
  
Smash! Glass rained down like confetti.  
  
An old grin he hadn’t felt on his own face in so long started to tug his lips up. He reached down for the second shell.  
  
“Bottom of the 9th…”  
  
The second post light fractured into bits with a satisfying sound like a cymbal clash.  
  
“Still got it.” Lorenzo hugged himself. He still had dead aim, after all this time. Maybe he still had other skills too. Maybe he could do this.  
  
He had to try. This was the best shot he’d had in months, and while it wasn’t ideal, he had a gut feeling he wasn’t going to get a better chance, or at least not for a long time. He wasn’t sure if he could afford to wait for a more ideal chance and wondered if this was how his mother felt when she carried him onto the boat that nearly killed them both all those years ago.

 


	2. Passage by Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance makes his escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kudos! Special thanks to QueenNavi, demonsLOver, Emmab10008 and SpaceGremlin for the comments! I hope that this story continues to live up to them. I thought it over and decided I needed to up the rating for this chapter. There is only one scene that is explicit, but that scene alone is probably enough to warrant it. Fair warning: it is fairly early in the chapter. If you've seen the movie, chances are you already know which scene I'm referencing.

 

Lorenzo sat sideways on the sectional sofa, staring out to sea through the floor to ceiling windows of the living room, one foot folded under him and the other touching the flokati rug with his bare toes buried in the shaggy pile. The lemon aioli and the vinaigrette were prepared and chilling in the refrigerator, alongside the bread cubes soaking in custard. The cod was seasoned, and the lettuce and potatoes were washed. His mise en place would be easy to set out in plenty of time to get dinner ready for the table.  
  
He had put on some makeup but had not changed out of the sweater and shift. There was no pressing need to change until dinner. Besides it was comfortable, and he would all too soon be uncomfortable.  
  
Behind him, the front door hinges groaned, and the latch protested as Sadak let himself in with no regard for delicate moving parts, as was his usual habit. Footsteps cracked against the hardwood, and then a glossy black bag bursting with tissue paper was dropped in Lorenzo’s lap.  
  
“For me?” he asked. He would have to work up some enthusiasm before turning around.  
  
“As an apology for our tiff,” replied the alpha, as if there could be any doubt. “I hope you like it. I got your favorite color.”  
  
Lorenzo sifted through the tissue and pulled out the lace teddy by a shoulder strap. It was a bold shade of royal blue, in a cut specifically designed for male omegas. The front had a pouch to hold the cocklet and ovotestes forward, so they were both displayed and out of the way, while the back left the buttocks and undercarriage completely bare. His mocha nipples would show up easily through the sheer lace bodice.  
  
“I love it.” He made sure his smile looked convincing before looking up into the eager face of the alpha.  
  
“Try it on for me.” He pulled Lorenzo up off the sofa, shoving the cardigan off his shoulders and rucking the shift up over his head.  
  
If he thought anything of the dark bruises mottling the right side of the omega’s body, he didn’t say. He just stood there waiting while Lorenzo awkwardly wobbled out of his underpants. When he got the bodice of the teddy past his hips, Sadak suddenly became more proactive, helping himself to a fondle as he adjusted Lorenzo into the pouch. He pulled the bodice up over Lorenzo’s chest and the straps up his arms to rest on his shoulders.  
  
Sadak’s tricolored eyes were intense with want. It was those eyes that had first attracted Lorenzo, before he knew what was behind them. One eye was a bright golden hazel, the other ice blue with orange striations around the pupil. A rare case of heterochromia, probably caused by alpha inbreeding, though when he’d first seen them he’d only thought they were pretty. Sadak’s eyes became fuzzy and indistinct as he hauled Lorenzo in for a kiss.  
  
“You don’t know how completely fuckable you are, how they look at you, wanting what’s mine,” Sadak said when he finally let Lorenzo breathe. “I’ll show you.” He picked the omega up and tossed him across his shoulder like a Sabine, carrying him to the bedroom.  
  
“Look.” Sadak deposited Lorenzo in front of the floor mirror beside the king-sized bed, where he staggered to catch his balance. “Look at yourself.”  
  
Lorenzo looked. Blue contusions stretched past the blue lace like an extension of it along the right side of his body, stark against his brown skin. His iliac furrow was far too visible for a male omega who was not also an athlete in training. “You’re lovely in your bones,” Dad used to say to Mamá, but Lorenzo didn’t think he’d ever meant anything like this. He fought down an impulse to giggle hysterically.  
  
Sadak left him standing there bearing witness to the ongoing ruination of his body to go to the sound system and queue up his favorite song. Then he came back and pitched Lorenzo onto the mattress, where he bounced, nearly sapped of energy to keep pretending.  
  
 ♬ _Fight, babe I’ll fight, to win back your love again, I will be there…_ ♬  
  
They had reached the point where Lorenzo’s active participation was no longer strictly required anyway. Sadak manhandled him on the bed into his favorite position when he was stone cold sober: fully presented, ass in the air, cheek to the mattress. Lorenzo could watch them in the mirror if he cared to do so. He knew Sadak would.  
  
♬ _...only love, can break down the walls someday, I will be there..._ ♬  
  
One of the blessings of being an omega prime was that he was able to produce copious amounts of slick very quickly, even when he wasn’t in heat. He hadn’t had a true heat in over three years, but Sadak liked sex on the regular and had long since lost any interest in taking the time to prepare him first, so his body kicking in automatically provided some relief. Sadak may have decided to avoid knotting, but the alpha’s dick was still enormous even without the knot.  
  
Sadak unzipped, lined up and pushed in without preamble. Lorenzo closed his eyes and clutched the bedding as his vaginal canal instinctively clutched around the penis stretching it open. Being massaged on the inside could feel infuriatingly good, even when he was so angry with Sadak that the very last thing he’d want to do would be to have sex with him. It was confusing and maddening to feel his body responding to the stimulus of his aphroditus gland being hit over and over when at the same time he wanted to rip that dick off at the root and throw it out to sea.  
  
Sadak’s hips sped up, balls thumping against his hindquarters with a ‘slap slap’ sound that heralded he would finish soon. Lorenzo felt his own orgasm approaching and pushed his hot face into the sheets to scream out his frustration. He crested over the wave right as Sadak abruptly pulled out and creamed all over his backside.  
  
“Laurel,” Sadak murmured. He rubbed his ejaculate into the skin of Lorenzo’s rump, a possessively thorough scenting of a sort that he usually only bothered with when he was getting ready to bite. Lorenzo, still huddled on top of the covers, tensed under his hands.  
  
“Oh, don’t worry lovely,” Sadak crooned. “I will mark you again as mine, soon. But not until after we sail.”  
  
Lorenzo felt fresh determination born of dread. If the alpha gave him a new claiming bite, he’d have to wait until it faded again, otherwise Sadak would be able to sense his life force even from miles away. As plain terrifying as this plan was, he could not back out. It had to be tonight.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
The dining room, like every communal space in the beach house, had a panoramic view of the ocean. Foam flecked the waves which rolled in choppy little bursts. The sun rode low on the horizon behind clouds that looked like swarming mackerel. Lorenzo poured herbaceous Sauvignon Blanc into U-shaped glasses as Sadak watched him avidly. Lorenzo had changed into drawstring pants and a dolman top to accommodate his sore areas. Sadak was still wearing the same damn thing he’d been wearing most of the day. Both still reeked of sex as they sat down to dinner.  
  
“Why don’t you tell me what it is that you want, lovely.”  
  
He wanted Sadak to be the man he thought he’d married.  
  
“Don’t play coy with me. I always know when something is on your mind.”  
  
Sadak did have an uncanny ability to tell when his thoughts were intensifying, even with such a weak bond as theirs. Lorenzo took a fortifying sip of wine. “Dorma called and said I was doing so well as a flex-time resettlement associate that she’d like to give me a chance at going full-time as a caseworker.”  
  
This was not just a diversionary tactic. Dorma Sirk, his supervisor at the nonprofit where he worked part time, had offered him the job. He would miss working with the female alpha, and her beta partner Hazar Teles. Among other small kindnesses, they had unfailingly called him by his given name.  
  
The name Laurel had started as a nickname, a cherished thing just between Lorenzo and Sadak. ( _“Your birth name means you wear the wreath of honor, but to me you are the wreath of honor. My lovely wreath of laurels.”_ )  Then after they’d married, Sadak had started introducing him to everyone they met as Laurel and it was no longer a nickname, no longer a secret code for Sadak’s intentions. It was just his name, and a mere adjective became the nickname in its stead.  
  
Sadak forked a bite of cod and dipped it in lemon aioli. “How will you take care of our homes if you’re always flitting about taking care of those bleeding hearts?” Predictable. “And you only earn a pittance for it. No, I won’t allow it.” So very predictable.  
  
“Have you forgotten that such bleeding hearts once helped me?”  
  
Sadak scoffed. “Your mother, bless her memory, helped you more than that chaff ever could. She was the one who brought you here and saw to your schooling so that you might find your way to my side, not them.”  
  
Lorenzo chewed his salad with unnecessary gusto. Sadak always insisted he understood Lorenzo’s mother better than anyone who had actually known her, so there was no point resurrecting that argument. “I have managed to balance my responsibilities for them and for you, you know that I have.”  
  
One last chance. He had to extend it. It was only his entire life, including the job he loved and everyone he’d known before, that he was planning on leaving behind. Something else he was going to have in common with his mother.  
  
“Have you?” Sadak fussily cut his salad into little bite-sized pieces. “I can recall not so long ago when this pursuit of yours took you from our home in Back Bay for three days, with no notice extended to me beforehand.”  
  
Lorenzo gulped his wine. If he had given Sadak notice, he would have said no. Then Lorenzo would have been defying an edict instead of just being ‘thoughtless’ and it would have ended up even worse for him on his return.  
  
Dorma had needed someone to escort an elderly omega to rendezvous with family in California. Lorenzo had begged for the assignment. The escort had taken less than twenty-four hours. He’d needed the rest of the time to accomplish something he hoped Sadak wouldn’t discover until it was too late.  
  
“That was months ago,” Lorenzo said, “and it was only for two nights.”  
  
“That was plenty of time for the townhouse to fall into disgrace.”  
  
Yes, because Sadak had trashed it in his rage and that was not all he’d done.  
  
“I could have cleaned it up for you faster without the splint on my leg.”  
  
Lorenzo stabbed a potato and ate it like carnival food while Sadak’s face morphed through several stages of umbrage before settling on dark amusement.  
  
“You’re trying to provoke me,” he said with a mock toast. “It won’t work, lovely. You’ll still be fit to sail tonight, and we can resume this conversation afterward.”  
  
Lorenzo felt his face heat up with unexpressed emotions as he fixed his eyes on his plate and concentrated on finishing as much of his dinner as he was permitted. He had taken a hell of a chance poking at Sadak like that, but the ploy had worked exactly as he’d hoped and dreaded it would.  
  
He would be borne upon the sea again tonight.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Antor Ilvig III was pretty much what Lorenzo had expected: a well-mannered alpha under thirty with flaxen good looks who knew a great deal about gastroenterology but did not have an instinctive feel for open water. He cheerfully introduced himself as the skipper of the SV Covenant as he welcomed the Sendaks aboard, with only the tiniest nose flare to reveal that he could smell their recent activities on them.  
  
_(“Bienvenido a bordo del Cubo Oxidado!”)_  
  
“Splendid craft you have here, Antor.” Sadak gave the taffrail a solid smack, his way of showing appreciation for something attractive.  
  
_(“Mamá are we really going on that?”  “Cálmate mijo, I am sure it is sturdier than it looks.”)_  
  
“Thanks! When I found out it came with the house, I couldn’t pass it up. Made my offer right there on the spot. Hey, are you okay? You can rest in the cabin if you want.”  
  
Lorenzo smiled queasily. Ilvig’s concern was both touching and pointless. “No, but thank you for offering, Dr. Ilvig.” He knew from stories told by Dad and his buddies that lying down in the tiny cabin would only make him more seasick. Besides, he really needed to stay on deck. He could not afford to be trapped below.  
  
“Laurel won’t see anything from the cabin, and I want him able to see the moon.”  
  
Sadak’s true motives might be vindictive but it suited Lorenzo’s purposes just fine, so he kept quiet.  
  
“It’ll be a full one tonight, should be a beaut!” Ilvig remained determinedly upbeat.  
  
_(“We will leave under cover of darkness tonight and turn on the engine once we are out at sea. By tomorrow night we will be in a shipping lane near the Keys. Have no fears, good passengers, your Capitán will get you across.”)_  
  
“Here Laurel, put this on.” Sadak helped himself to the blue life vests from the safety bag lashed down in the cockpit. “He can’t swim,” he said to Ilvig.  
  
_(“Don’t be cowardly, let the omega and child have the inner tube. It will probably not be needed anyway.”)_  
  
Ilvig, with an assist from Sadak, pointed them into the sound and hoisted sail. The sails luffed, caught, and they were off.  
  
_(The betas hovered over a contraption with the letters ‘Chevrolet’ in cursive on its side, messing with a red wire. After a few minutes of fiddling, the contraption began to chug like an almondrón. The betas shouted, one of them grabbing the tiller, and they were off.)_  
  
They were barely past the slow wake zone when the first bit of weather rolled over them.  
  
“Little bit of chop, hang on up there!” Ilvig seemed eager to show the omega on board that he was an attentive alpha. Sadak was starting to show signs of being churlish about it, positioning himself against the port gunwale between their convivial skipper in the cockpit and the omega crouched in the bow pulpit.  
  
“Look at that moon, Laurel!” Sadak grinned maliciously. “Isn’t it beautiful reflected on the water?”  
  
The moon peeked out from behind dark rolling clouds like the bronze locket peeping from under his mother’s blouse. The sudden memory of it made Lorenzo’s throat close and he clutched the railing tighter.  
  
_(“Mamá it’s hot.”  “I know mijo. Soon we will be in our new home and away from this hot sun. Hold my locket and wish on it.”)_  
  
“I wish…” A spatter of rain hit Lorenzo’s cheek and danced across the sleeve of his windbreaker.  
  
_(“It’s not so hot anymore, is it chico?”  “Hush you and mind the rudder.”)_  
  
The leeward telltale started fluttering madly. Lorenzo had noticed when he’d come on board that Ilvig didn’t have a boom brake. He had a boom vang that could be rigged as a preventer, but his current setup could result in trouble if the boat jibed accidentally.  
  
_(“I thought you said we’d reach the shipping lanes by now?”  “The Gulf Stream must have pushed us a little off course.”  “How much of a little?!”  “I don’t know!”)_  
  
Rain started coming down in earnest, turning Lorenzo’s hair into sodden sheets and sticking his eyelashes together.  
  
“We should head back!” Ilvig had to shout to be heard about the roar of the wind and sea. “Coming about to starboard!”  
  
The boat began its tack. Lorenzo kept his eyes on the boom.  
  
_(“Keep bailing!”)_  
  
“Buoy off the starboard bow!”  
  
Lorenzo turned his head to mark the red lighted nun buoy bobbing in and out of view. Beyond it, the lights on the beach were a spark of yellow against the charcoal sky.  
  
_(“Mijo hold on to me!”)_  
  
He turned back in time to witness the boom swing crazily to port, nearly knocking Sadak overboard, but the alpha managed to duck and take hold of the gunwale railings to keep himself from pitching into the sea.  
  
“Shit! Grab the mainsheet, quick Sendak!”  
  
Sadak snatched at the mainsheet as the boom swung back over his head. “Come over here and help me!”  
  
Ilvig scrambled out of the cockpit to help Sadak get control of the sails. They seized the boom and mainsheet together, struggling with it like a scene out of a John Singleton Copley history painting. The mainsail popped out full, obscuring their dramatic poses from view.  
  
Then the boat started to heel.  
  
“We’re going to broach!”  
  
“No, we’re not, reduce sail!”  
  
The boat righted itself, but now the wind was behind them and so was the tide. The water convulsed, the bow rolled down on the break, and Lorenzo jumped off the starboard bow into the following sea.  
  
What Sadak always forgot and Lorenzo had decided to stop reminding him was that he could damn well swim. He had learned to swim in a lagoon near his parents’ casita at an age when he was barely speaking in full sentences. He had refused to get in water deeper or murkier than a three-foot lap pool since he was five years old, but his mother had made sure he never forgot how to swim. Just in case.  
  
The ocean welcomed him back with a chilly embrace as the life vest valiantly tried to drag him back to the surface. Everywhere around him was dark, dark, dark and roiling, his chest felt tight and his lungs felt like they might burst with the desire to expel his precious air, and then suddenly his head broke the surface and the red buoy was dead ahead. He made for it on a breaststroke, sighting it with every gasp of breath at the top of a wave.  
  
He gulped sea water, spat out what he could, reached the buoy and scrabbled at the body before clutching onto the pad eyes. He hugged the side of the bobbling marker and gobbled air into his lungs. Something rough and uneven poked against his clothes. Acorn barnacles, clinging to life on the floating light the same as he was.  
  
“Laurel! Laurel!”  
  
_(“Mijo don’t look!”)_  
  
The beam of a flashlight searched across the tossing waves, but Lorenzo did not want to be found, and Sadak’s panic-stricken shouts did not move him. He clung to the far side of the buoy and remained still, waiting. It was agonizing. He knew that great whites sometimes came into Nantucket Sound looking for grey seals and wondered which predator would be worse to discover him there.  
  
Lorenzo had witnessed a shark attack as a child, when old Señor Garcia had fallen some distance away from the much-reduced group of survivors as they free-floated in jasper green water under a slate blue sky, some hanging onto the inner tube, others treading water. There had been a yell, a splash, the rolling of a large silvery something full of fins, and then Señor Garcia had been gone.  
  
One of the younger guys, Gerardo, couldn’t shut up about how he thought it was a hammerhead while Mamá hissed at him to stop talking for God’s sake. To this day Lance didn’t know how to describe the feeling of knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that there were large predators underneath his feet, somewhere just beyond his sight but they could probably see him. They spent hours afterward watching and waiting on the swells of the sea to find out if a shark would come for any of them.  
  
In the end it had not been a shark that had come for them. It had been Dad, in his seaplane converted Cessna.  
  
The Covenant tacked again and sailed in the direction of the West Chop Lighthouse. Dad would not be flying overhead to pluck him out of the Atlantic this time. He would have to swim.  
  
_(“They bolt for cover just like we do kid. It’s not during the storm you gotta be worried about sharks, it’s after.”)_  
  
Dad had said that once, trying to comfort Lorenzo when he worried about him going out on one of his crazier ventures. It may or may not have been true, but it gave Lorenzo ballast now. He took off the life vest and hung it on the pad eye closest to him and started stripping off his clothes, as quickly as he could while hanging onto the side of a swaying buoy one-handed. The water was cold at the surface, but it would be even colder down below if his waterlogged clothes dragged him under. The life vest, on the other hand, was not yum yum yellow, so he was going to keep using it. He put it on backward and began a forward crawl towards the gap in the line of lights on the shore. The gap he had made to guide his way.  
  
Top of the wave, sight and breathe, pull, pull at full extension until his arms and legs ached and then went tingly. Pull, pull, kick, with limbs like drogues. The wind and tide pushed and pulled him closer to the shore as he spat out seawater and took in gasps of salty air with each stroke along the churning surface of dense water.  
  
Eventually his kicking feet met sand. Lorenzo tried to stand up and almost face-planted when a wave pushed him down. He came back up coughing, scrambling for purchase in wet sand on all fours, shoving himself forwards towards solid ground. He collapsed where the surf turned to foam, arm’s length away from the beachgrass. Rising and receding waves continued to massage his legs as a light rain patted his back.  
  
He had to get up. Sadak would be trying to rouse the Coast Guard to look for him, and it was only a matter of time before he was in danger of being spotted if he stayed where he was. He heaved himself to his feet and took off at a shambling run over the dunes, a hunched over figure naked but for a blue flotation device slung across his chest. The same cold drizzle that made his privates draw up and his flesh break out in bumps would erase his footprints leading up to the house.  
  
He stumbled past the conversation set on the patio and stopped under the outdoor shower. Just because he was out of the ocean didn’t mean hypothermia no longer posed a threat. He still remembered shaking so hard under a Mylar blanket with Mamá that one of his baby teeth rattled loose as the high whine of a turbocharged engine buzzed in his ears, his nose to her clavicle desperate for the comfort of her sweet orange scent hidden behind the smell of salt.  
  
He turned the hot water on and rinsed until his shivering eased off to an intermittent tremble. He wanted to stay under the warm spray longer. He couldn’t spare the time. He turned off the water and shook himself all over like a dog. The rain continued to cover his escape.  
  
He let himself in through the mudroom, turning on the whole house air purifier to mitigate the amount of scent he was leaving around. Then he took the string mop off the rack. Sadak never did the cleaning, only the dirtying up. It would probably be dry again by the time he thought to as much as look at it.  
  
Lorenzo used the mop to wipe up his wet foot prints behind him as he continued into the laundry room, where he had a go-bag hidden. The cabinets where the detergents were stored had a deep recess above them just big enough to hide a duffel bag out of sight. So long as Lorenzo kept them looking well-dusted from a standing vantage point, Sadak couldn’t be bothered to get on a ladder to play head games up there.  
  
Lorenzo got on the stepladder and retrieved the blue duffel, then mopped his way to the downstairs guest bath, where he turned on the only light that would be used while he was taking his last tour of this house. The first thing he pulled out of the duffel bag was the beach towel, a ridiculous thing made to look like a giant pizza. College kids had used their beach during the off season and left the cheesy towel behind, much to Sadak’s fury. He thought Lorenzo had thrown it out at his instructions, but he had instead washed it and added it to his escape kitty. Now he used it to dry off and rub some more feeling back into his limbs.  
  
Next, he pulled out a jumbo-sized plastic shopping bag, where he placed the wet towel and the life vest, which was going to have to come with him. If he tried to leave it in the water near the shore it might drift back too close and give him away. Maybe he’d make a pillow out of it.  
  
Speaking of things that had to come with him, Lorenzo held up his left hand and stared at the band of gold gleaming from his third finger. It was a two-tone twist design fashionable for formalizing alpha-omega courtships, the yellow gold representing a promise of fidelity and the rose gold representing a promise of love, 24 karats because a Sendak wouldn’t let his omega wear anything less. He yanked it off and threw it in the bag. He’d figure out something to do with it later.  
  
He set the plastic bag aside and put on clothes: mismatched socks, faded old blue jeans, a blue and white raglan shirt and Converse sneakers that someone else had written on but that still had good soles, thrift store finds one and all. He’d collected them, along with some other necessaries, using the money left over from the shopping budget Sadak handed out every week. Sadak thought he was keeping Lorenzo on a short leash, but he was up against Lorenzo’s formidable ability to find bargains, and he never bothered to go over his cash receipts, only bank checks and credit card statements. When Lorenzo gave him change he trusted it was correct because he trusted his own accounting more than his omega’s.  
  
Lorenzo had used his arrogant oversight to collect a decent-sized roll of cash, and had even more money siphoned into a PayPal account he’d opened with Dad’s EIN, where he had convinced Dorma to split off a portion of his direct deposit. He’d told her he was putting it into a trust for his Dad, in case anything happened to him. He had created a trust for that purpose, but that wasn’t what the PayPal account was for. Dorma hadn’t questioned it. Neither had Sadak, who just gloated that his paychecks seemed so comparatively small.  
  
Lorenzo pulled a wig out of the duffel, a copper brown mullet which he liked to think Dad would get a kick out of. He set it on the bathroom counter and looked in the mirror. Fierce eyes in a drawn face stared back. He took sewing scissors out of a pocket on the duffel and started cutting off hanks of salon-flattened hair until he had a riot of uneven brown locks defiantly curling across his skull. He gathered up the shorn hair, threw it down the toilet and flushed, then raised his chin to peer closer at his neck in the mirror.  
  
His mother taught him that salt purified, and he had just been immersed in salt water for a significant amount of time. Lore had been a horticulturist by training, a gardener by trade since her advanced degree from Universidad de Oriente Santiago de Cuba did not qualify her for research grants in the USA. One of her clients was a Santera named Zandra for whom she wildcrafted herbs, and who had wanted to initiate her as a priestess. Lore had never taken her up on the offer, though she had learned quite a bit just by chatting with her over coffee, and Lorenzo had in turn learned a few things from his mother.  
  
In the time it had taken him to swim from the buoy, the salt water had faded his unwelcome mark from two tapering bisque crescents to two tiny beige lines over his right primary scent gland. Lorenzo keened in anxiety. It was not enough, and he didn’t have time to wait for it to fade the rest of the way gone. Sadak might still figure out he was alive, and he’d keep every resource he could command looking for his omega so long as he did. He had to believe Lorenzo was dead, and he had to believe it tonight.  
  
_("When salt is not enough, use fire.")_  
  
Lorenzo searched under the sink for what he needed. There was a styling iron stored there for last minute touch-ups, a fancy little job with a fast heat setting and a 2-in-1 barrel for curling and straightening. He smiled grimly. Nothing but top-drawer for a Sendak’s omega.  
  
He plugged in the iron, then took up a guest towel and stuck it between his teeth. When the digital indicator blipped at him that it was hot enough, he touched the curling barrel to the mark on his neck. He shouted around the towel gag as the iron scorched his skin, biting down hard. He dropped the hot iron in the dry sink and leaned heavily against the counter.  
  
He grit his teeth against the pain, took the curling iron out of the sink and turned it off. Thank fuck for Sadak’s insistence on a hypermasculine decorating scheme, the granite didn’t burn. Lorenzo fumbled open the medicine cabinet. Every bathroom in the house was well stocked with first aid supplies, mostly for his own use. There was a slight possibility Sadak would miss something from here, but he was going to have to chance it. He cleaned and cooled the lobster red burn with gauze soaked in water, and then applied antibiotic and a non-stick dressing.  
  
He was feeling a bit more himself by the time the dressing was done. His neck still hurt like fire, but his head felt clearer. He wiped out the sink with more gauze and packed it all out in the duffel. He put the curling iron away and tried to sort out the guest towels, refolding them with the tags facing in and the decorative embellishment facing out and putting them back on the rack in an even row. It was the last time he would ever have to do that chore. Endorphins were starting to make him giddy.  
  
He took the final bit of clothing he planned to wear tonight out of the bag, a brown bomber jacket. Dad’s jacket. He ran his fingertips over the worn, buttery-soft leather. He could still detect a faint trace of Dad’s cedar humidor scent coming from it. Sadak had ordered him to give it to charity. It was the first of his belongings that Lorenzo had hidden, and when Sadak had not discovered the hiding place after weeks passed, it had emboldened him to start putting together his go-bag. He had a similar bag hidden at work and wondered what Dorma would think when she cleaned out his desk.  
  
Lorenzo put on the wig and the jacket. His dark brown eyebrows made a noticeable contrast to the much lighter brown in the wig, but trying to filch an eyebrow pencil from the upstairs vanity now would just cost him time and leave his scent in places Sadak would more likely notice. The stand-up collar on the jacket hid most of his bandage. The ridiculous mullet tail on the wig hid the rest.  
  
He turned off the light, hoisted the duffel over his shoulder and mopped his way back to the mudroom. Then he turned off the air purifier, put the mop back on the rack and walked out of the house into the moonlit night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Android pelvis is real, per Mosby's Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 9th edition. © 2009, Elsevier: "android pelvis - a type of pelvis with a structure characteristic of the male. It is also common in women. The bones are thick and heavy, and the pelvic inlet is heart-shaped... Vaginal delivery is likely to be difficult unless the overall pelvis is large and the fetus small." So, theoretically an omega male could have dude hips, and the trope where omega males trend toward premature delivery is also supported since they'd have better odds of surviving unassisted natural childbirth with a low birth weight baby.
> 
> The aprhoditus gland is not real. Men have a prostate gland that is a known erogenous zone and which regulates seminal fluid. Women have a homologous organ called Skene's gland, which regulates vaginal lubrication and is rumored to be the source of the G spot. It would make sense for omegas to have a similar gland to regulate all that slick. I named it after a mythological figure, because it seems like something Herophilos would have discovered and named.


	3. The Odyssey of Lance McClain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance starts to become Lance, but he's still got a long road ahead. 
> 
> Movies always make riding the Greyhound seem much more romantic than it actually is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kudos, and thanks again to demonsLOver for the comment! I appreciate the song rec, I will definitely be checking that out.

 

There were no city buses leaving the village this hour of the night and he couldn’t risk a cab driver remembering him, so Lorenzo walked steadily northeast towards the transportation center where he would be able to get on an intercity bus. The rain stopped shortly after Lorenzo left his own neighborhood, as if it were a co-conspirator. Sand and spray gave way to pitch pines, twisting and curving to survive conditions that would kill a less hardy tree. Ostentatiously large vacation homes gave way to the wooden frame houses of year-rounders. In the still of the night no one bothered him or questioned his presence walking alone.  
  
Lorenzo kept his pace steady and entertained himself with a private game of count-off, like Mamá and Dad used to play with him on errand days. The endorphins that had kicked in earlier helped him past the point where his shins began complaining. He occasionally transferred the duffel from one shoulder to the other to ease his back. It took him roughly an hour to make it to the larger town, by which time he’d counted off a rather impressive number of Toyotas and fantasized that each one of them was his and he was driving them.  
  
The road widened, the trees thinned, and businesses and parking lots lined the streets in increasing plenitude. The transportation center’s passenger waiting area would not be open until the early morning hours, so Lorenzo needed to find a safe place to wait awhile. A glowing sign appeared around a bend in the road. The 24-hour fast food restaurant would suit just fine. His feet sent little prickles cheering the imminent possibility of sitting down.  
  
A bored young beta served him, hardly batting an eye at the presence of an unaccompanied omega at a burger joint in the middle of the night. The industrial pheromone sanitizers humming away in the HVAC system were not enough to account for it, Lorenzo was standing too close to the counter for his scent to have gone completely unrecognized. He had nearly forgotten how normal it could be for omegas to have agency in public places.  
  
An unintended consequence of Sadak keeping Lorenzo cosseted was that while he didn’t recognize anybody, neither did anybody recognize him. He didn’t have a social media presence thanks to Sadak, who had even managed to keep his name and picture out of the tabloids back during the trouble that had fast-tracked their courtship. Lorenzo was effectively cloaked in anonymity so long as he stayed away from the types of places frequented by the circles Sadak traveled in, which shouldn’t be difficult since he couldn’t afford those places anymore.  
  
The only other customer in this place was a man in bib trousers reading a USA Today over in the far corner. Lorenzo snatched up some ketchup packets and napkins and secreted them away in an exterior pocket of his duffel while waiting for his tray, a trick his mother had used to supplement their meager kitchen supplies back in the early days when they’d been living out of a hotel room. The cashier completely ignored this activity. This was a value chain restaurant in a resort town, so he’d probably seen it before.  
  
Lorenzo took his cheeseburger and small coffee to a booth near the exit and savored them for as long as he could. It had been so long since he’d been allowed to taste processed foods that the salt and grease in the burger hit his tongue like ambrosia. He would need to keep to a strict budget until he could stabilize his situation, which meant Big Mac Attacks might be few and far between after this trip was over. Fast food was only cheap if you didn’t have a place to store food, and he hoped to have a place soon. He licked his finger pads when the burger was demolished and then took his cup back to the counter for his one free refill.  
  
After nursing the second coffee for as long as possible, Lorenzo walked over to the transportation center parking area and hove towards the grey weatherboard siding of the bus station. People who had overnighted in their cars were already up and moving, sleepily gathering their luggage from trunks and hugging loved ones goodbye. Lorenzo had not known that feeling of someone sending him off fondly for years and might not know it anytime soon. It was a melancholy realization. He pushed it aside.  
  
He rolled in on a tide of fellow travelers when a blue-capped employee opened the doors, and followed the signs to the Peter Pan ticket counter.  
  
“Where ya off to, sweetheart?” Another beta customer service clerk, another complete lack of reaction to an omega traveling alone.  
  
“New York City please.”  
  
“I.D.?”  
  
“I’m paying with cash.”  
  
The clerk looked up from her computer terminal and eyeballed Lorenzo. She seemed to be paying more attention to his clothing than his dynamic, though.  
  
“It’s nonrefundable if you pay cash,” she said.  
  
“I know. It’s fine. I’m going one way.”  
  
“Suit yourself. We got one leaving in fifteen minutes if you want on it.”  
  
“That’s perfect.”  
  
He handed over a portion of his precious cash for the ticket. He had just spared change for a copy of the Cape Cod Times when the PA system announced that his bus was boarding. He hurried outside, where a line of people waited on the sidewalk beside a long green bus parked at a slant. A boarding agent checked each ticket and directed passengers to their seats. Lorenzo thanked his good fortune to have been assigned a window seat. He claimed it and put his duffel in the overhead bin. A curly-haired beta male with a business suit and a tan took the aisle seat next to him. He smelled like salted caramel.  
  
“Good morning.” The businessman kicked open a footrest that Lorenzo had not even noticed was down there. “It’s a sad day when vacation is over, but at least I’m only heading back to a half day at the office.” He chattered at Lorenzo for a few more minutes about how much fun he’d had at the beach before he remembered his manners. “I’m Zander, Zander DeBarros, but my friends call me Zandee. And whom do I have to pleasure of meeting?”  
  
“Lance.” The young omega smiled, a full honest smile. “Lance McClain.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Lance.”  
  
Lance stirred awake at the sound of his new name, which was really an old name but not one that had always been his. He had been dozing in his seat. “Hmm?”  
  
His new friend laughed, amused at his sleepy befuddlement. “We’re almost there.”  
  
“I’ve been sleeping that long?” Lance gawked out the window at honking yellow cabs, flashy store fronts, and people rushing through crosswalks in mindbogglingly large throngs.  
  
“You fell asleep in Connecticut,” Zandee said. “You looked so peaceful I didn’t want to wake you.”  
  
Even on a crowded bus, Lance had managed to sleep more deeply than he ever had in a bed next to Sadak. He listened in growing good spirits to Zandee pointing out landmarks he was familiar with as the bus lumbered on its way along 41st Street and then down under concrete.  
  
Workers in yellow vests waved the bus to its appointed terminal in the close, dim space. Lance suddenly was assaulted by sense memory of wearing a blue life vest in the close darkness of ocean water. His breathing quickened. He closed his eyes and shook if off before delayed reaction could set in. His journey was not over, so he could not afford to give into emotional overwhelm, not yet.  
  
He was glad to have Zandee’s company on the elevator. So many people were crowded in together, their scents a confusing melange. Some of those people seemed to be taking notice of Lance, though none of them met his eyes when he looked back. He bid Zandee farewell as they parted ways on the main level, and then he got in a roped-off line to buy a ticket for a Greyhound bus. When he finally got to the front of the line and declared his destination, the Greyhound ticket agent made the same demand the previous bus ticket agent had done.  
  
“I.D.”  
  
It was not phrased as a question this time.  
  
Lance took out the driver’s license Dad had gotten made so that he could help him ferry around stocked bars for wedding receptions. People loved seeing a water plane touch down near their gazebo setups, and they loved it even more when that plane turned out to be full of booze, but young Lorenzo had not been quite old enough to be serving alcohol at the time.  
  
The fake driver’s license had a lot of his real information on it, including his correct stats except for his birthday, which showed him as one year older to the day, and his name. The license said he was Lance Charles McClain Jr. He’d found it in the pocket of Dad’s jacket when it had arrived by registered mail, and he couldn’t believe Dad had hung onto the little plastic card considering everything else that had been going on at the time.  
  
He was confident the license would stand up to visual scrutiny. Dad’s buddy Darell, who had made the license, was a Mensa card-carrying genius and knew how to get his hands on all sorts of things that were not easily sourced. He was not sure if it would stand up to a digital scan. Darrell may be a genius, but he’d never intended the license to be used the way Lance was using it, and the thing was almost six years old besides. But he didn’t have to worry about that yet because the ticket agent just tilted the license to look at it from several angles and then took Lance’s cash and printed out his packet of tickets. Fast as an auctioneer he reminded Lance the ticket was nonrefundable, told him when his bus was leaving and where his gate was, and sent him off on his merry way.  
  
In the meantime, Lance had a layover and he was going to make some use of it. He headed for the restrooms, entered the one designated for omegas, and was immediately hit in the face with the powerful stink of the many preheat omegas who had been in there before him.  
  
Lance screwed up his resolve, covered his nose and picked an empty stall. He had shit to do. Not literal shit. Figurative shit and thank heaven for that.  
  
Omega stalls always had both a toilet and a floor-standing bidet inside, so they were generally spacious compared to any other public restroom except for the alpha restrooms, which had territory buffers. That made them a prime target for people who wanted to use the restrooms for more recreational activities, but Lance didn’t see how anyone would want to use these. He picked the cleanest one that wasn’t already occupied, and he still wouldn’t want to sit on that toilet seat without taking a sandblaster to it first. He was very glad the dressings on his neck and hand were sealed tight.  
  
He hooked his duffel on the door’s coat hanger, so he could rifle through it without it having to touch the floor. He took out the roll of remaining cash, separated it into smaller rolls and transferred some of them to the inside pockets of his jacket and jeans before putting the rest back in the duffel. It would be easier to pay for things on the way without having to risk someone seeing exactly how much cash was on him every single time, and if he got his pocket picked they wouldn’t make off with all of it.  
  
Next, he pulled out the prepaid cell phone and data top-up card. He’d picked it up for his kitty during an unauthorized excursion into a discount store, along with a still-unopened pack of cotton briefs (and it was sure as hell not going to be opened inside that bathroom stall). The smartphone wasn’t top of the line by any means, but it didn’t need to be. It just needed to be able to get him on the internet. Besides, it was the first smartphone he’d used in over three years, so to him it was fantastic. The battery was already charged, he’d made sure of that shortly after he’d bought it. He finished activating the phone, accessed the transit station’s free Wi-Fi and then opened the phone’s onboard browser and navigated to a travel site that he knew took PayPal because he had used it from his work computer to book the California trip.  
  
Sadak had tried to limit his access to knowledge outside his scope as the sequestered mate of a well-heeled alpha. But his job – the job that Sadak thought trifling – brought him into regular contact with people who used all manner of survival techniques that the alpha could never have dreamed of. That was not counting what Lance had already known from his own childhood and the tidbits he’d overheard and filed in his memory while serving coffee to Sadak’s cronies.  
  
Minutes later he was striding across grey tiles, relieved at the knowledge that a room at an extended stay hotel would be waiting for him at the end of the line. He decided to celebrate with a small coffee and cheese danish, figuring it was worth the expense if it meant he could hunker down inside the clean and well-lit Starbucks for an hour or two. He wound up killing a decent chunk of time just waiting for the fresh brewed coffee to be passed into his hands, time which he used to palm some sugar packets, swizzle sticks and napkins to stuff away in the exterior duffel pocket.  
  
He took his lunch to a tiny bistro table against the wall, balanced the duffel between his lap and the tabletop and finally opened the Cape Cod Times. There was nothing in it regarding his untimely death. He read it backwards and forwards to make sure, glancing through articles about town meetings, high school sports, and local business owners up in arms about what constitutes a service dog, but found nothing about the missing-presumed-dead omega of a summer resident alpha.  
  
Of course, this was not a large paper, and he had barely been gone a few hours before they went to press. Sadak was not likely to make the most welcoming of interview subjects either. Lance wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t cover the story for another day or two and by then maybe the people he’d spoken to wouldn’t connect his description with the mullet-haired omega who’d stood at their counters.  
  
What he really needed for his peace of mind was a copy of the Globe or the Herald. Preferably both. He polished off every crumb of his food and drank every swallow of his coffee before hiking up his duffel and giving up his table to go to the news stand by the concourse. The kiosk was selling all sorts of travel and tourist items, like I♥NY shirts, candy bars, even hair dye which Lance pondered before deciding against it. In the end he took just the newspapers to the checkout counter. He wasn’t really a tourist, and he had granola bars in his bag.  
  
“Nice to see a young person interested in reading ink on the page,” said the cashier, an elderly beta male wearing a red kufi. “Everybody wants to get their news on the internets now. Pah! Nothing like the feel of paper in your hands.”  
  
Lance smiled at the cashier while inside he was wondering why he hadn’t thought of that first. Sadak forbade him from going on social media, but the jackass surely had accounts for his own use. He was a lawyer for a high-powered M&A firm; he’d have to be using all the major ones, even if he only maintained a professional presence.  
  
He thought about searching for Sadak’s social media accounts using the smartphone in his duffel. It felt like saying the devil’s name and hoping he didn’t answer the call. With Sadak, it paid to be paranoid. Who knew what kind of tracking apps he might be using on those accounts? He had dangerous professional enemies and a massive ego. He’d once made his omega carry a GPS transmitter everywhere he went because he had become convinced an opposing counsel was going to try to seduce him for information. Lance would just stick to the papers until he felt safer.  
  
He took his newspapers to the Greyhound waiting area and hovered near the bolted-down benches, looking around at vending machines and drooping-tired people. Something smelled off. Some of the people sitting there were not carrying any luggage, and some of that group seemed alert to the point that the air around them carried a metallic scent, but they were hunched over pretending to be tired like the people they were chatting up.  
  
“Carry your luggage for you?”  
  
Lance startled to find a stranger wearing a nylon jacket with another one tied around his waist standing way too close and smiling way too big over a blond goatee. He smelled like old nickels.  
  
“Nope. I’m good.” Lance booked it to go find his gate. The strange man did not follow.    
  
The cordoned-off express departure gate already had passengers loitering around in front of it, jockeying to get a good seat because this bus company didn’t assign them. Lance tucked his newspapers into the duffel for later reading and joined them. Standing a little while longer wouldn’t kill him. He’d be sitting down again soon enough.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance snared a window seat in the middle of the bus. This time he ignored the overhead carry-on bin, opting to keep the duffel on his lap. He figured he might be able to slump forward on it and catch a nap at some point. A big jowly guy wearing a blue turtleneck and his dark hair in a taper cut took the aisle seat next to him.  
  
“Hi how ah ya.” He smelled like rosemary and basil with a strong undercurrent of truffles. He was a muddy alpha, or what people called muddy alpha, which was usually a beta with a rare co-dominant version of an alpha allele trying to express itself alongside the dominant beta allele. Or, even more rarely, an alpha with a co-dominant version of the omega allele. This guy smelled comforting like a warm kitchen, though, so he was most likely dominant beta.  
  
“Fine, thank you for asking, how are you?” His mother had raised him to repay good manners in kind. They had only been chatting a few moments – the guy’s name was Kay and he was going to visit an old Army buddy in Philly – when the idling bus parked right next to theirs was suddenly swarmed by people in ICE jackets. Someone in the back of their own bus exclaimed “¡Que joder!”  
  
Lance shrunk down in his seat, aware that he was starting to emit the burnt sage scent that was his own signature of distress, but unable to stop it. If those agents came onto this bus, he’d have to show them I.D. and he only had the fake I.D. that might not stand up to a scan, and his social security card was in a lockbox in Sadak’s office at the Back Bay townhouse and wasn’t it ironic because he was a legal citizen but if they found that out then they’d find out he was supposed to be dead and then they’d call his husband oh God-  
  
“Hey.” Kay put his big warm hand on Lance’s shoulder and gave off a burst of scent like a pan of lasagna fresh from the oven. “Breathe.” He might not smell much like an alpha, but his ability to control his scent for psycho-biological effect was an alpha trait, and it was working.  
  
Lance breathed. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. “Thank you.”  
  
“Don’t sweat it.”  
  
_“Gentlepeople may I please have your attention.”_  
  
There was a hiss of hydraulics as their bus door closed and they started to glide serenely away from the fracas. Lance had not even noticed their driver get on the bus, but he was so relieved he could have cried.  
  
_“My name is Mack, I’ll be your driver all the way to St. Louis, for those of you who are traveling all the way to St. Louis, and there is absolutely no smoking on the coach. We’ll be arriving in Newark at approximately 4:40 in the post meridiem at which point we will be stopping for fifteen minutes and only fifteen minutes…”_  
  
The driver proceeded to lay out the rules in such absurd detail that Dad would have probably wanted to shake his hand after hearing it.  
  
The driver got them to Newark with just enough time for a coffee break, which Lance elected to sit out, and then got them back on the road nonstop to Philadelphia. Lance’s seat partner entertained him with funny stories along the way, like how he went by the nickname Rocky all through high school and his Army deployment but then decided to start using his given name again because he got tired of people trying to get him to shout ‘Adrian!’  
  
“So, what’s your story, Morning Glory?” Kay asked as the windows darkened and the passengers around them started turning on reading lights or pulling jackets over themselves to try to nap. “Ya off visiting?”  
  
“I’m going to be closer to my Dad.” Lance clenched the straps of his duffel, wanting to trust his friendly seatmate but still unsure. “He um, he was in a bad way. For a while. But he, he took a turn recently and… I just need to be closer.”  
  
“Bossman keeping you away, huh? Sucks when they won’t let ya take time off to see family. It’s family, ya know? They oughta come first.”  
  
“He said he’d stop paying Dad’s medical bills if I didn’t do everything I was told.” Lance trembled slightly with remembered outrage. “But things have changed now, and I can’t… I can’t stay away.” Lance’s chin wobbled, then firmed. “I won’t. Not anymore.”  
  
“Takes some balls to stand up to somebody who’s got ya by the short hairs like that.”  
  
Lance peered up at Kay through the fringe of his mullet wig. “Yeah, it only took me forever and a half to stand up.”  
  
“Takes some balls to stay in a situation like that for somebody else’s sake, too.” Kay’s warm brown eyes suggested he knew they weren’t talking about an employer.  
  
Lance felt a smile tugging up one side of his mouth. “Thanks.”  
  
“Fuhgeddaboudit.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Kay’s friend, a lanky beta wearing Bermuda shorts even though he was pale as a high-risen moon and summer was barely hanging on in New England, introduced himself as Wally Kreutz and seemed to take it completely in stride that his friend had picked up a stray omega.  
  
“Why don’t you come with us to get tacos,” he said. “I can make sure you get back here before your layover ends.”  
  
“Yeah!” Kay found this to be a great idea. “Come with us! I’m buying for everybody!”  
  
Lance dithered a few seconds, but the truth was he was very hungry, he had grown to trust Kay (to an extent) and Wally also gave off a comforting scent, like a forest glade. The thought of eating a granola bar by himself while surrounded by strange smells was less than appealing. “Okay.”  
  
Lance used the facilities when they got to the fast food restaurant, and when he came out the betas were toting trays loaded with tacos to a booth table. Kay and Wally then took turns regaling Lance with stories of their more comical exploits while pushing extra tacos on him that they thought he was too distracted by the stories to notice. Lance savored every crack of corn shell and gush of warm chili sauce, and every story too. The layover was objectively over in no time.  
  
“You know, if you need a place to crash, you can always come back here.” Wally hung out of the driver’s side door of his red compact SUV to watch that Lance got safely on the bus.  
  
Both of these guys were amazing. He wished he’d met them before… before everything. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t tempted to stay with his new friends, but he couldn’t take them up on that offer. “I’ve got to go to my Dad.”  
  
“I get it.” Wally smiled.  
  
“Here.” Kay held out a business card. “I got a cousin out West, if you need help that’s closer, call him up and then he’ll call me up and we’ll go bust some chops.”  
  
Lance took the card. _Herschel Garrett_ was imprinted on it, and it said he was a _chef de partie_ at a Hawaiian fusion restaurant near Los Angeles.  
  
It was not all that far from where Dad was being treated.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
The bus was less crowded when Lance got back on. He was able to return to the seat he’d had before and nobody claimed the seat next to him, so he turned on the reading light and started poring over his Boston newspapers.  
  
He found a mention of himself in the Metro section of the Globe:  Spouse of prominent local attorney goes missing in storm. It was as tastefully reported as such a macabre announcement could have been, with a photograph of him looking distracted next to Sadak at some fundraiser or another. The story under the headline was short, to the point, and inconclusive, and it used Sadak’s preferred name for him instead of his birth name. Sadak must have still been hoping to find him alive when that story ran. Did he make a mistake burning his neck? Lance rubbed the bandage under his collar lightly with his fingertips, felt the sting of the burn site. Could Sadak have felt it clearly enough to correctly deduce what he’d done?  
  
Could he feel it even now? Lance abruptly dropped his hand to his lap. But no, no. Lance couldn’t feel Sadak at all anymore, none of that simmering menace that had hovered at the back of his consciousness for years, ebbing and flowing only with the clarity of the bite. Even unwanted, the bond was meant to go both ways. If Lance couldn’t feel Sadak anymore, then Sadak surely couldn’t feel him either.  
  
Lance found a more sensationalist mention in the Local News section of the Herald: Lawyer’s omega lost in shark-infested waters. They had included a photo of him staring pensively into the middle distance at Rowes Wharf. Lance realized they must have gotten that picture from Hazar and felt sick to think of the kind blond beta believing him to be dead.  
  
This story used his real full name, but amazingly didn’t follow through on the connection to a previous major story. Either they thought it was old news, or someone (most likely Sadak) had pressured them into continuing to withhold his name in relation to the older case. As a married omega, he should have no longer been eligible for such consideration. Lance wondered what Sadak had on the reporter that could have compelled him to ignore that fact.  
  
Or maybe it wasn’t Sadak doing the pressuring. This story quoted a CGIS Special Agent Miranda as stating that he was most likely dead, and that unless a body was recovered he would be marked down with official cause of death as drowning. Then the Special Agent made a point of saying that Sadak would have to wait thirty days to collect on his omega’s life insurance, during which time the investigation into his death would be ongoing, which was interesting. Not that Sadak had taken out life insurance on his omega, that didn’t surprise Lance at all. No, what was interesting was that someone appeared to suspect Sadak as being capable of murder.  
  
A chill ran through Lance’s frame that wasn’t caused by the bus’s sub-arctic air conditioning. He knew Sadak was capable of a lot of things, suspected him to be capable of manslaughter, but coldblooded murder? He thought of the many times Sadak had put hands around his neck, and then left off because bruises there would be harder to hide. He’d known the alpha was steadily losing control over even that much instinct for preserving his own reputation. Could he have been closer to that edge than even he had guessed?  
  
He still felt terrible for letting Dorma and Hazar think he was dead, but he was starting to feel damn lucky he’d taken the chance and escaped when he had.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
The next break stop was Pittsburgh, but reboarding was not required this time so Lance didn’t get off the bus. He hugged his duffel like a body pillow and fell asleep, not waking until the morning light filtered through the windows of the bus as the driver announced a layover in Columbus, Ohio.  
  
Sometime during the night, a young female omega had sat down next to him, a sweet-faced girl in a green and blue dress with her dark hair rolled in a bun. They smiled at each other as they got off the bus but didn’t speak. The other omega met a large group of people waiting for her in the parking lot who formed a protective ring around her and carried her off like a valued member of their pack.  
  
Lance felt a little pang of envy at the sight. Large scale pack bonding was not a common practice in developed countries, having given way to beta-centric social models after the Industrial Revolution. Maybe if he’d belonged to a traditional pack this thing wouldn’t have happened to him.  
  
Or maybe it would have, and then it might have been even more difficult to escape. There was no point dwelling on what-ifs when he had no answers. He pocketed his reboarding pass as he left the bus and found himself ducking his head to get in the station door past a group of catcallers.  
  
“Hey sweet thing, back that up over here!”  
  
“You smell like my next baby momma!”  
  
“You want some fries with that skinny shake?”  
  
Lance bought a Coke out of the vending machine and then sat on his duffel by the gate to wait for the staff to let reboarding passengers back on the bus. No way in hell was he going to hang around within yelling distance of those guys any longer than he had to, not even for coffee and a muffin. He grabbed a granola bar out of the duffel and ate it for breakfast with his fizzy jolt of caffeine and corn syrup, steadfastly ignoring the assholes peeping through the building’s laminated glass doors to try to get another glimpse of him.  
  
He wound up having a similar meal during the Indianapolis station layover, but not for the same reasons. The building was quieter and cleaner – he made for the omega restroom with all due speed – but the sandwiches at the food station had odd looking cheese tags peeping from between bread that looked hard as particleboard and it just seemed like a better idea all around to have another cola and granola bar.  
  
He arrived in St. Louis in late afternoon with two hours to kill before the transfer. Lance would have braved catcallers for a muffin by that point, but it turned out he didn’t have to. This station was in a larger transportation center, with multiple windows letting in the last of the day’s light, and two fast food chains with express venues in the food court. It was terribly overpriced, but it was hot food and he had only eaten granola bars all day, and the self-serve area had individually wrapped cutlery packs that he could swipe. He got a fried chicken combo and ate it down to the last crumb of breading.  
  
He crunched ice from the remains of his soft drink as he took out his phone to scrounge the web for free music downloads. Some of the sites he’d used before his marriage were no longer what he remembered, but a search helped guide him to some decent options. He had green cat ear headphones in his duffel, a high school treasure that had followed him to college with tape wrapped around the cable to keep it from fraying anymore than it already was. Sadak had told him to throw the headphones out, so into the kitty they had gone. Lance would be glad to have a few tunes that he could play without disturbing anyone else on the bus. He still had some ways to go, and nothing but his own tumultuous thoughts for company.  
  
He was especially glad to have the tunes as the new bus, with a cranky new driver, pulled out of the station.  
  
_“I am your bus driver from here all the way to the Western frontier. My name is Mr. Carp. You may address me as Mr. Carp. You will find my name is apt because I don’t take any crap. If you don’t know what apt means, look it up on your iPhones or whatever you’re all using back there to decrease my visibility at night…”_  
  
Lance wondered how many people were mentally calling him Mr. Crap, and whether someone would have a Freudian slip before the trip was over. He staked out another window seat near the middle of the bus, and had another omega sit down next to him, this one an older lady who nodded hello to him and then promptly nodded off. He might follow her example in a little while, but first…  
  
 ♬ _Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah, some call me the gangster of love._ ♬  
  
He smiled as Dad’s favorite song bomped into its opening verse. What even was a pompatus of love anyway? Whenever he’d ask, Dad would just laugh and tell him he’d understand for himself some day. He still didn’t get it.  
  
He fell asleep somewhere between Springfield and Tulsa and didn’t awaken again until Elk City, Oklahoma. The lady in the seat next to him was fussing with the valise at her feet, trying to shove her brown shawl into it as the bus coasted to a halt in a convenience store parking lot.  
  
_“For those of you who are not disembarking here, we are stopping for twenty minutes and only twenty minutes. Don’t think I won’t leave you here if your butt is not back in a seat on this bus in twenty minutes.”_  
  
Lance decided not to get off the bus. He watched out the window as yet another omega was whisked off into the morning with an overprotective loved one, this time an older gent with a magnificently bushy brown mustache. He put his arm over her rounded shoulders as he led her to a stepside truck and then handed her up into the passenger seat.  
  
It was the kind of everyday sweetness he’d seen from Mamá and Dad before everything went pear-shaped. It was what he’d hoped for from Sadak. He was still staring after the space where the truck had been when the bus pulled out of the parking lot.  
  
The next layover was Amarillo, Texas. The grassy plains had begun to ease into desert scrub, the sky an entrancing gradation of blue from pale as a baby’s blanket to dark as Lance’s own eyes. The bus pulled up to what looked like a vintage terminal, with space age lines like an Airstream trailer. Inside was a lunch counter with ‘Sal’s Luncheonette’ on the sign. Lance risked his stomach on a late breakfast of scorched coffee with greasy eggs over-hard on dry toast, prepared by a grumpy beta in a headband and apron. Lance gave up trying to cut it and just put it together to eat like a sandwich.  
  
He couldn’t say he was satisfied when he got back on the bus, but he was no longer hungry.  
  
They arrived in Albuquerque in late afternoon. It was another layover in a larger transportation center, an edifice of adobe with a red stucco roof that blended seamlessly with its surroundings. When Lance climbed off the bus the air was as dry as a sun-weathered palm frond. He found the coffee shop and bought himself an espresso and a bagel with cream cheese and palmed some more napkins and sugar packets.  
  
After inhaling the coffee and lingering over the bagel, he thought he might spend the rest of the wait time goofing around and looking at the architecture. Leisure time was something he hadn’t been able to truly enjoy for years. Only, he found himself being trailed around by an unexpected admirer, a toothy older beta with a full grey beard wearing an odd assortment of yellow and blue shirts.  
  
“¿Quien pidió pollo?” he leered.  
  
“Buenos,” Lance sighed, heading back for the gate. So much for goofing off.  
  
Later that evening they stopped for a break at a truck stop in Gallup, New Mexico, with Mr. Crap barking _“Thirty minutes, people!”_   Lance was hungry again, and he knew his long drive was coming to an end soon. He could smell grilled something coming from somewhere inside that place. He was getting off the bus.  
  
They had a sit-down restaurant inside the truck stop. It was a greasy spoon to be sure, but the smell of that grease was making Lance’s mouth water. He in no way had time to sit down for a meal, so he got a to-go order of tater tots covered in melted cheese and was already eating it with his fingers before he’d even walked out of the attached gift store. He elbowed his way out with his duffel acting as a buffer in the crowd, but he was too focused on getting the fried potatoes into his mouth or he would have spotted the trucker through the windows, running around the side of the building to head him off by holding open the door.  
  
“Howdy, serah.” The young trucker tipped his hat, and at first Lance wasn’t sure the greeting was addressed to him. He looked around and the guy’s light blue eyes were resting on him and only him.  
  
He was a handsome young buck, with a tight knit shirt highlighting his strong arms and a denim vest showing off his lean torso.  
  
“Hello,” Lance said cautiously. He was creating a bottleneck at the door, so he accepted the trucker’s courtesy and went out into the parking lot. In the open air he could smell it better: a strong mineral scent, like water in an underground cave. Alpha.  
  
“I couldn’t help but notice you all alone in there serah, and wondered if you might require a ride somewhere?”  
  
Lance hadn’t thought it possible for anyone to take serious notice of him wearing the goofy mullet wig and smelling like he hadn’t bathed properly in two days (because he hadn’t) but somehow this young alpha had spotted him. It was probably the prime pheromones.  
  
This kind of encounter was why he’d chosen to leave home for an all-omega college. The same all-omega college where Sadak had been trolling the campus looking for a mate before he finally met a young male prime who’d only ever had one serious relationship, a high school sweetheart with whom he’d never been past third base.  
  
Lance felt his chest tighten in frustration. This alpha was polite, but if he was looking for anything but a good time he’d have offered his name by now.  
  
The bus honked.  
  
“I have to go.” Lance dropped his food, hiked his duffel and bolted for the bus, a burst of adrenaline making up for the lack of caloric fuel.  
  
Someone had snatched his favored window seat while he was inside the truck stop. He took an aisle seat next to a snoozing elderly beta male and privately lamented the melted cheese wasted in the dirt.  
  
The young alpha stared after the retreating bus with hunger in his gaze.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
The bus arrived in Phoenix, Arizona in the darkest hours of the morning. Lance stumbled into the bus station, bleary-eyed. Flat screen televisions mounted from the ceiling blared cartoons high over his head as he shuffled into the restroom to finally remove his wig. He checked out his image in the mirror. Dark circles under bloodshot eyes, bandaged neck stark white against his brown skin, wildly unkempt hair with that bruise turning olive at his hairline. HAWT. Lance poured some cold water from the sink into his palms and used it to scrub his face and through his hair, which he tried to pull down over the bruise as best he could. He had a drugstore foundation stick buried in the depths of his duffel but he was too damn tired to hunt it out. This would have to pass muster.  
  
His hotel had 24-hour check-in, but the Valley Metro buses wouldn’t be running for several more hours yet. He emerged from the restroom and lurched over to the windows to peer into the darkness towards the airport, which had shuttles and taxi cabs. He wasn’t sure his legs would hold him up long enough to get over there. They were starting to feel like jelly after mostly being in a chair for close to three days. He got yet another vending machine soft drink and sat in the waiting area to scarf down another granola bar. If some horny person tried to talk to him now, they just might get the telling-off of their lives.  
  
His scent must have been putting out sleep-deprivation psychosis danger signals because the other people in the station gave him plenty of personal space. He sat and tried to make his cola and granola meal last as long as possible, not out of appreciation for the flavor but simply to avoid the onslaught of unwelcome thoughts hovering just on the cusp of his consciousness, waiting for a quiet moment to jump him.  
  
He was second guessing himself on his choice of city to start over. He’d wanted to be a day’s drive from Dad, but he had forgotten to factor in that he might not have easy access to a car. It took longer to travel anywhere by bus, he’d just learned that empirically. But he’d needed to make sure he wasn’t so close that Sadak could track him easily. He was sure that if the alpha ever suspected his spouse was alive then the first thing he’d do would be to locate Dad, and then he’d start searching the surrounding area. Male omega primes were rare enough that Lance would be easy to find if he chose to live in the same city as the rehabilitation facility.  
  
He’d also wanted a place where he could get lost in a diverse crowd. It didn’t get much more crowded in North America than the Phoenix metropolitan area. It was a large and expanding population center, with a sizeable Latinx demographic. Cubans made up a comparatively modest percentage of that demographic, but they were here too.  
  
Now he was here.  
  
Lance sat with his thoughts circling the reality that he was alone in a city he’d never even visited before, and he was meant to live here, and he had done this thing with erratic preparation. Outside, the sky gradually turned from deep indigo to cobalt, with orange and red creeping up from the horizon.  
  
His new phone chimed at the golden hour to let him know when it was time to go outside and meet the city bus.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Here’s your keycard.” The name tag pinned to the orange vest of the beta with the side-shaved fuchsia hair said ‘Ursula L.’ “Grab-and-go breakfast just got put out, so you know. Have at it or whatever.” Ursula handed over the keycard and the passel of papers Lance had just signed relinquishing his firstborn child if he trashed his room.  
  
Not really, but it was a thorough accounting. On the bright side though, he didn’t think Ursula gave a rip that he’d walked in looking like an extra from _The Walking Dead_. He shambled over to the food cart in the reception area and perused the offerings. They had apples, oranges, bananas, urns of hot coffee, individually wrapped muffins and packets of oatmeal. Also? Freaking granola bars. Lance grabbed one of each of everything but the granola bars, loaded up a luggage cart and toddled along to the elevator. He’d had the presence of mind to request a third-floor room, and luck betide him, he got one.  
  
Nobody else appeared to be stirring when he disembarked the elevator, but he heard other people thumping around in their rooms as he trundled down the third-floor hall.  
  
The first thing he saw when he keyed open his room was the kitchenette. Small top-freezer fridge, stainless steel sink, compact microwave mounted over a two-burner cooktop, and just enough counter space for Lance to dump his grab-and-go breakfast onto. Just beyond it was the bedroom, living room and office area, all crammed into the same studio-sized square footage. The whole room had that hotel chlorine smell, a wrenchingly familiar scent that took him back in time to his childhood.  
  
When he closed the door behind him, Lance noticed another closed door adjacent that had to be the bathroom, but he was too exhausted to think about cleaning himself up. He lugged his duffel across the room and dumped it in the closet, then trudged over to the recliner, where he awkwardly curled up and stared out the window at traffic on the thoroughfare rushing past the parking lot, drivers already in a hurry on their way to somewhere routine and harmless.  
  
He sat numbly as entropy caught up with him. How had this become his life? Barely four years ago he was going for his bachelor’s degree at St. Julian’s on a full-ride scholarship, his Mamá was safe and alive and his Dad had not lost himself looking for her. His name was Lorenzo Fernández Diaz, he had a bright future ahead of him, and he had no idea what it felt like to be overpowered by someone much stronger than himself. Now he was bruised and alone on the run under an assumed name, had no idea what his future might hold beyond the next eight days, and felt dread that it would be more of nothing good.  
  
He doubled over in a shape of curving misery on the faux leather, sobbing his long-delayed grief over the loss of his mother and of that hopeful person that he once was, crying until he finally fell into an uneasy sleep where large toothy creatures followed him ever further into the darkness.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¡Que joder! - Means "what the fuck"
> 
> ¿Quien pidió pollo? - "Who ordered chicken?" It's a pickup line that evolved from a Colombian joke about an expensive restaurant bill. Basically, he's telling Lance that he looks like a dish.
> 
> Buenos - "Good ones." This is considered a socially acceptable response to pickup lines in Cuba.
> 
> Serah - A gender neutral form of address that I borrowed from Dragon Age.


	4. From The Ashes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance takes stock of his situation, and this leads to him meeting Allura, Coran and Keith. 
> 
> Sendak makes a strange discovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for all the kudos! You guys are the best.

 

Lance woke with a crick in his neck and the sun shining at a bright slant across his face. He had slept into early afternoon. His stomach gave a questioning grumble, but he decided that a shower was paramount to feeding his face and was glad he hadn’t passed out on the bed in his greasy condition, crick or no crick.  
  
Stiffly he bent over the duffel and got out the budget brand shower gel and conditioning shampoo in the same almond scent his mother used to buy, carrying them to the bathroom. There was a wrapped bar of soap sitting pretty on the pink laminate countertop. Lance left it there.  
  
He stripped off and examined his naked body in the mirror over the sink. The bruises on his face, arm and side had begun to turn green and yellow, which made less of an alarming contrast against his skin tone than the bruises that still shone blue along his hip and thigh. If he stuck to jackets, jeans and makeup he should be able to go out in public without anyone noticing. He removed the dressing from the wound on his hand and was glad to see it had scabbed over. He could put a simple band-aid over that now, and it would be much less conspicuous. He peeled back the dressing on his neck. Patches of exudate decorated the wound like dragon’s scales. He carefully resealed it before getting in the shower.  
  
He scrubbed himself down with cheap almond-scented suds and a terrycloth rag, the nostalgia a comfort instead of an incipient cry fest this time. Three days worth of salt, sweat and sebum swirled down the drain. When he got out of the shower he took an inordinate amount of glee in pulling every carefully wrapped towel and rag off the rack and unfolding it. The ones he didn’t use he tossed shapelessly on the counter beside the sink. They’d stay dry and clean there, who cared if they wrinkled? They were just going to be used to bathe and dry off his bare ass anyway. He tossed the towel he had used to the floor as a makeshift bath rug.  
  
He’d gotten a discount on the room by refusing the optional maid service, so he’d clean it how he saw fit.   
  
He dressed himself in brand new underwear and clean thrift store clothes, and then puttered around the tiny kitchen checking things out. The room came with two cafeteria style place settings, a few pots and pans, some dish towels, and the most adorably wee drip coffee maker Lance had ever seen. Its carafe said it made five cups, but realistically it made maybe one Venti. Lance heated up his now-stale black coffee from the grab-and-go in the microwave as he took inventory of what food and other kitchen items he had.   
  
During his fast food foraging he’d managed to get seven packets of ketchup, fourteen packets of white granulated sugar, five packets of turbinado sugar which he promptly dumped in his reheated coffee, three packets of Truvia, fifteen swizzle sticks, one of which he used to stir his coffee, six cutlery packs and a substantial wad of mismatched paper napkins.  
  
From his own packed items, he had a bottle of liquid Joy, a can opener, a pocket knife, an aluminum greca pot, a filtered sport bottle for water, a microwavable bowl, some sandwich bags and a single service cutlery set that had come from a larger set that Mamá and Dad had gotten for a wedding present. He’d also managed to pack enough granola bars that he’d barely made a dent in them, a 5-pack of ramen, a brick of Café Bustelo, a honey bear, a few foil pouches of tuna and a couple of cans of Vienna sausages.   
  
Then there were the complimentary breakfast items. It was good that he could count on the hotel for at least one meal per day, that he might even be able to stretch into two if he could consistently get to the spread before it was all gone, but he still needed to secure another source of nutrients.  
  
He considered this as he prepared the grab-and-go packet of oatmeal with water boiled on the stove.  
  
 _(“Clean water first, then shelter, then food. Then we can worry about the rest.”)_  
  
Lore used to say this often to her young son when they’d just started living in Hialeah, usually in response to him wanting a bicycle, or an action figure, or some other toy that he saw another child playing with at school. This was when she was still working for the hotel where they were staying, and they were still living hand to mouth, before she’d built up her own clientele and gone freelance. Afterward, she’d made up for lost time spoiling him.   
  
The lesson stuck, though. Lance had water and shelter, for now. He needed to find food. He went to the landline phone on the nightstand and dialed the front desk.  
  
“Yeah?” Ursula was still on duty.  
  
“Hey, this is Lance in room 316.” She probably already knew that from the caller ID, but it was the principal of the thing. Introductions were just good manners. Even if you were using your stepdad’s name. “This hotel has a shuttle, right?” He remembered seeing that as an amenity.  
  
“Yeah? We have a van. It just goes to the airport and back.”  
  
“No shopping trips?”  
  
“Sky Harbor is practically a mall, dude.” She chewed gum for a second. “That’s not the kind of shopping you’re looking for, is it?”  
  
“I was thinking more along the lines of food. Grocery type food.”  
  
“You could take a Lyft to Safeway.”  
  
Lance huffed a breath. “That could wind up costing as much as the groceries.”   
  
“Point. Okay, so there’s a bus that goes right to an urban grocery store. Like, six minutes away. That work?”  
  
“I could kiss you, Ursula.”  
  
“Nah man, I like girls.”  
  
Lance smiled as he sliced the grab-and-go banana to eat with his oatmeal. His mother had done this. He would honor her memory, and he knew Dad would never begrudge him the use of his name.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance regretted wearing the bomber jacket as soon as he stepped outside. Phoenix in late August in the daytime was hot. People who called it ‘a dry heat’ must be snickering behind their hands because they knew that just meant it was roasting. Lance was experiencing what it must be like to be a Barbie Doll in an Easy-Bake Oven. He walked straight back into the hotel and went back to the room to trade the jacket for a white cotton hoodie. He loved Dad’s jacket, felt comforted by his scent embedded in the lining, but heat stroke was no joke.  
  
When the bus let him off at the stop Ursula told him to take, Lance noticed a Circle K across the street and took a quick detour. The Valley Metro driver from the night before had told him he could get multi-day passes at Circle K. He got one, along with a small bottle of condensed laundry detergent, some more band-aids and a newspaper. Minutes later he was headed back over the crosswalk towards a cinder block corner store with street art painted on the outside of it.   
  
It looked like a botánica, until you went inside. Instead of candles and herbs, shelves full of bread and bins full of produce took up the floor space just inside the door. Farther in were shelves stocked with canned goods, and boxes of dry goods stacked to the ceiling along the walls. There was a glass door freezer next to a reach-in refrigerator, and spirits kept behind the cash register.  
  
Lance left the store with a loaf of bread, a couple of fresh lemons, a pint of whole milk, cream cheese, guava jelly and a jar of instant café de olla. He didn’t usually take his coffee with cinnamon in it, but he appreciated that this one had sugar already added to it, and he knew as soon as he opened his bag of ground coffee it would start to oxygenate so he was going to try to put that off a while longer. He’d also gotten a string shopping bag that stretched to fit his entire afternoon’s haul in it, so that he could sling it across his body instead of stressing his still-sore arms on the bus ride back.   
  
He made himself a cream cheese and guava jelly sandwich for a late lunch when he got back. He quartered the lemons, put one wedge in a glass of water and the rest in a sandwich bag in the freezer, and then added a Truvia packet to his lemon water to try to convince himself the tap water didn’t taste so bad.   
  
Food was sourced. Now he needed a plan. Specifically, a more stable housing plan and an employment plan. Once upon a time his mother had managed to combine the two. Maybe he could do the same?  
  
Except, his mother had been assisted by a resettlement agency attached to the Archdiocese of Miami. They had known she had no proof of identity papers and been prepared to help her deal with that problem. Lance didn’t have that kind of assistance, and couldn’t afford to ask for it, for the same reason he’d figured out early on that he couldn’t go to a battered omega’s shelter: as soon as he used his real legal identity for any reason, Sadak would be tipped off by his firm’s private investigation team, he would have them trace it, and he would come for him.  
  
Lance worried his savings might not hold out long enough for him to stabilize his income. The goal was to have more money coming in than going out, but right now he’d be happy if he could just nudge the ratio closer to even. He took his lunch and the newspaper over to the desk and opened the classifieds.  
  
 _(“The best jobs are always listed under Other!”)_  
  
Dad had made his primary income chartering out his Cessna, but he was always on the lookout for a good side hustle. He’d pore over the classifieds at the breakfast table during the slow season.  
  
 _(“You mean the employers who ask the least questions are listed under Other.” )_  
  
Mamá would swat him with the Home & Garden pages as if to scold, but her smile always gave away her amusement.    
  
This newspaper’s classified section listed those kinds of miscellaneous jobs under Part Time. Lance skimmed the entries, skipping past the mag crew come-ons and the jobs that obviously required a social security number to even get an interview callback. He sighed as he found plenty of jobs he’d have been qualified for if he were applying with his real credentials. He noted a couple of possibilities where Event Management companies were looking for banquet servers for special occasions, thinking he might be able to bluff his way past their screening process. Then he found something interesting.   
  


  * Mock Jurors needed – help law students practice their skills in a mock trial. No experience necessary. All backgrounds welcome to apply!



  
Lance called the number.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
The following morning, Lance took a twenty-minute ride to Tempe on the Valley Metro. He’d spent nearly an hour the day before being quizzed by the two law students before being deemed an acceptable match for a demographic need they had, so that they could go ahead and conduct their mock trial before the weekend.   
  
When they’d asked him if he was related to any lawyers, he said ‘no.’ As far as he was concerned, his marriage was over.  
  
The conference room where the mock trial was taking place was located inside a student union. Lance felt rueful as he walked past backpack-toting students mingling outside in the sun. _“Take a gap year,”_ Sadak had said, _“I’ll support you when you return.”_   Lance had not wanted to take time off from his classes, knowing that this would invalidate his scholarship. He’d been a happy overachiever, maxing out his full-time credit hours every semester. He was glad he’d at least insisted on applying to be awarded the associate degree before the wedding, for what good that did him now.  
  
The law students greeted him at the door to their assigned conference room. Both were female alphas. Hira MacCreary, a formidable redhead who smelled sharp like juniper berries, would be representing the plaintiff. Allura Fallows, an Anglo-Indian beauty who smelled like vetiver and ginger, represented the defendant.   
  
If he had met Allura just a few years prior, Lance would have been offering her his best piropos. But this was life post-Sadak, so he just offered a brief smile as he was ushered into a room with a rectangular table and padded chairs on casters, and eleven other people who were going to be serving as mock jurors.   
  
“What’s an omega doing in here?” This came from a beta who had positioned himself at the head of the table, where he leaned back in his chair so that his beer gut plopped out of his shirt.  
  
“An omega will be included on any jury, it is a requirement,” Hira said as she effortlessly shoved the beer-gut beta’s chair over to the side and replaced it with her own.  
  
“That’s right.” Allura took her place at the foot of the table. “All three dynamics must be represented in a jury. Traditionally the makeup of a jury includes one alpha, one omega and ten betas. There are exceptions, but that’s the typical arrangement.”  
  
It was a beta’s world, truly. Alphas were just living in the most comfortable corners of it.  
  
“All right then, where’s the alpha?” The beer-gut beta stood up and scratched his ass, peering around at the assembled twelve.  
  
Allura looked to the slouched figure in the chair to her right. The look seemed rather pointed. The slouched figure grunted but did not straighten up.  
  
Lance, who was still standing just inside the door and over Allura’s left shoulder, wondered how he’d missed the presence of a third alpha at such close range. Unless there was a strong competing smell, his nose could usually pinpoint the number and provide a rough estimate of the ages and primary genders of alphas within a few feet of him. Curiosity getting the better of him, Lance ventured to take the seat on the other side of the grumpy alpha.  
  
“That guy?” Beer-gut beta just would not let it go. “He’s a muddy alpha!”  
  
“That’s just another beta though, right?” A woman with blonde helmet hair leaned across the table like she could solve the mystery of the recalcitrant alpha with the intensity of her stare.  
  
“Keith is not a beta.” Allura said this with an air of finality as she sorted through paperwork at her section of the table.   
  
At first Lance assumed she meant this Keith identified as alpha – some betas with co-dominant alpha did and could win legal recognition as such in a court of law. But now that he was closer, Lance could smell him, sweet and resinous, like piñon. It had the powerful resonance of alpha, but also something evocative of wistfulness. Beta scents were well known for eliciting happy or comforting emotions in the people who smelled them, but this was different.   
  
Scents that educed a desire to wallow in them were a famous trait of another dynamic altogether. The irritable person sitting next to Lance was an alpha with co-dominant omega, an even rarer dynamic combination than his own.   
  
Keith slumped in the chair with his hands tucked into his armpits and his legs sprawled out, the posture offering conflicting messages about his ownership of the space. Lance couldn’t see much of his face behind the cloud of black hair falling forward over it.  
  
“He’s alpha enough that he could be called to serve as one for jury duty,” Hira said, as if that settled the matter. Which, judging by the way the other mock jurors immediately stopped messing around and took their notepads and their seats, it did. Even beer-gut beta sat back down, though he grumbled about it.   
  
“If we’re quite done discussing someone else’s dynamic in front of him,” Allura said with a look around the table that could have formed icicles on a running furnace, “all rise for the Honorable Coran Hieronymus Wimbleton Smythe.”  
  
Everyone scuffled to stand back up as a genial-looking mustachioed man stepped farther into the room. “Hullo.” He had a head full of sunset red hair, brighter than Hira’s darker sherry tone. As he passed behind Lance, he smelled a bouquet like sun-dried laundry, but he didn’t think it was coming from the man’s clothes. Store-bought detergent wished it smelled that nice. This was a beta prime scent, and one of the most delightful beta scents to ever tickle Lance’s nose.  
  
The ‘judge,’ who was a Trial Advocacy professor and a faculty mentor to McCreary and Fallows, sat himself down in a folding chair that he brought in with him. “You may be seated again,” he said amiably in an accent from someplace across the ocean. Lance’s high school sweetheart had been from Australia. Professor Smythe’s accent was similar, but the vowels sounded shorter.  
  
Professor Smythe went on to give the mock jurors instructions on how they were to interpret the law regarding the fictional personal injury case of a busker mime who slipped on a banana peel in the patio seating area of a Dairy Queen. As both sides presented their arguments it began to become clear that this was an exercise in trying on opposing points of view. Hira’s lips twisted every time she had to insist that the business be responsible for the disposition of its own bananas, and Allura could hardly control her eye rolls when she presented the theory that a mime-hating guest had deliberately caused the accident, thus rendering the business innocent of negligence.  
  
Professor Smythe gave them both a stern talking-to on the probability they would not always get to represent clients they liked, and to get a handle on their resting expressions and professional bearing. Then they started calling in ‘witnesses,’ who were actors recruited from the university’s drama department. The alleged mime-hating guest played her role like Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity. (“Maybe I did. Maybe I would.”) The business owner was more believable, twisting his cap in his hands and looking so anxious that Lance was on the verge of promising to buy a cone from him until he remembered this guy wasn’t really a Dairy Queen franchisee. But then the mime came in. He was decked out in full harlequin makeup and insisted on giving his testimony in charades. Apparently the guy was a Method actor.  
  
Professor Smythe lost his professional bearing.  “You are under bloody oath!”  
  
The mime acted out the shruggie.  
  
“Speak out loud or I’ll hold you in contempt of court!”  
  
Finally, they got to the closing arguments. The law students had both picked up some steam from cross examination. They were like fire and ice battling it out over mime liability. Lance wished he had popcorn.   
  
Professor Smythe gave the mock jury instructions for deliberations as a delivery driver brought in a catered lunch of cold cut sandwiches, potato chips, fruit salad, cookies and bottled iced tea. Allura, Hira and Professor Smythe took their lunches into another room to let the mock jury deliberate while they ate.  
  
No sooner had the door closed behind them than Mr. Varkon the beer-gut beta said, “I’ll be the foreman.”  
  
“We have to vote for the foreperson,” Lance reminded him. The law school was giving him good food and more than fair compensation for the day’s work, he felt he owed it to them to be conscientious about it.  
  
“Shouldn’t we make the alpha the foreperson?” asked Mrs. Zwirn, the blonde with the helmet hair.  
  
“Do what you want,” said the alpha. There was a barely-there twang to his accent, like he’d once had a stronger one and made some effort to lose it.  
  
“Geez, who pissed in his cereal?” The short dark-haired guy named Marvin elbowed his friend, the taller dark-haired guy named Hutch.  
  
Enough with this shit. “We are going to vote like adult human beings.” Lance grabbed up a bowl of chips and dumped out the chips onto a paper plate. Then he snatched up a napkin to fold over the bowl. “Everybody use your notepads to vote for who you want as the foreperson and put it in this bowl.”  
  
“The ballots will be greasy,” Mrs. Zwirn pointed out.   
  
Lance raised his eyebrows at her.  
  
“Well, I’m just saying.”  
  
“What’s the alpha’s name again?” somebody stage whispered.  
  
But in the end, everybody voted. Lance counted the votes on the conference table with everybody watching.  
  
One vote for Varkon. Wonder who cast that ballot?  
  
One vote for –   
  
“Who voted for the Flying Spaghetti Monster?”  
  
“You can’t quantifiably prove he’s not here, waiting to change the results of our deliberation with his noodly appendage.”  
  
Keith voted for the Flying Spaghetti Monster. That contrary grouch.  
  
“I can quantifiably prove that he’s not a member of this mock jury.”   
  
“No, you can’t. He is an honorary member of all mock juries.”  
  
“Just read the rest of the votes!” Varkon barked. “Somebody might have won by a landslide!”  
  
Lance read the rest of the votes. Four votes for ‘the alpha’ and one for ‘Keith.’   
  
That last one was his, actually. Keith might be a grouch, but his zero-fucks approach could be useful for keeping everybody on task.  
  
Two votes for ‘Lance,’ two for ‘the omega’ and one for ‘that nice omega boy.’  
  
Lance looked at Keith. “We’re tied.”  
  
“Aw crap.”  
  
So, they wound up as co-forepersons. It wasn’t long before the group devolved into an argument about whether the mime had it coming.  
  
“He was trespassing!” Varkon pounded the table. “That girl that dropped her banana is a hero!”  
  
“You can’t trespass on public property.” Marvin turned to Hutch. “Can you?”  
  
“It wasn’t public property, it was a private business,” said Hutch.  
  
“Professor Smythe told us to strike any testimony that had to do with why he was on the premises,” Lance reminded them.   
  
“Well hell, does he deserve a payday just for showing up and falling down?”  
  
“Whose fault was it that he fell on the banana peel?” Keith groaned from behind his hands. “That’s who would be liable for his medical bills and lost wages in a perfect world.”  
  
“What kind of wages do you suppose a mime makes?” asked Vince the college freshman.  
  
Lance privately mulled that question for his own reasons. Dad used to sometimes take him to join up with a group of his friends to sing and play guitar in South Beach for the tourists, before a panhandling ban put a damper on their lucrative fun. Lance hadn’t felt much like singing recently, but he still remembered most of the SoBe Explorers’ repertoire. Maybe he should find out more about the panhandling laws in his new city. Busking could be a way to make some money without filling out any forms or being asked questions he couldn’t answer.  
  
He shelved that thought to break up an argument about whether mimes were creepy or just misunderstood. “We’re not supposed to be judging his character you guys!”  
  
Finally, after a couple more hours of wrangling conversation threads that kept going way off topic, they were able to deliver a mock verdict.   
  
“Read it,” Keith hissed.  
  
“You read it!” Lance hissed back.  
  
After their little hissy fit was over, Lance read it.  
  
“The preponderance of the evidence suggests that the banana peel came from Corral’s handbag-”  
  
“Ew,” came from somewhere down the table, which Lance dutifully ignored.  
  
“-and not from the restaurant. Therefore, this jury finds the defendant, the party known as Gardin LLC, Not Guilty of gross negligence in the matter of Zeppo versus Gardin LLC.”  
  
One hundred dollars cash and a free lunch was nice for a single day’s work in the air conditioning. If only there were mock trials held every day. Lance would need many more such nice days before he could afford to relax.  
  
“No eres tan malo, omega,” Keith said as they were walking out. His Spanish had the same accent that Lance had heard the most often in his vicinity over the past couple of days, with none of the dropped consonants he was more familiar with from Caribbean speakers.  
  
“Igualmente, alpha,” Lance replied with a smile. Somehow, calling Keith ‘alpha’ did not have the same dreadful cachet as calling Sadak by the same title. With Keith, it was just repaying brusqueness in kind.  
  
Keith squinted at Lance as if he’d just called him Mr. Poopyhead instead of alpha. “Where are you from?”  
  
“Miami,” Lance said which was close enough to the more complicated truth. “Spare me the Florida Man jokes, I’ve heard them all.”  
  
Keith laughed, and it transformed his cranky face into something rather pretty, though Lance felt it prudent not to say so. The guy seemed self-conscious about his co-dominant omega traits.  
  
Lance waited at a Valley Metro bus stop in a mellower mood than when the day had begun. He was not down for the count yet. Today was a good omen.  
  
A teal Honda CRV turned right at the corner he was standing on, and then slowed down and eased into the loading zone. Lance gazed at its tinted windows in bemusement. That guy was going to get a ticket. Then the window rolled down and Professor Smythe leaned across the empty passenger seat.  
  
“Are you in need of a lift young man?”  
  
“No thank you, I have a bus pass.”   
  
Professor Smythe did not raise Lance’s hackles like that alpha back in Gallup had, but still. He needed to be careful about who took a personal interest in him.  
  
“Nonsense, I’ll not have you using up one of your chits when I can drive you home.” Professor Smythe pulled up his emergency brake, a clear signal he was not going anywhere without being of assistance.  
  
Lance stepped over to the open passenger side window. “I don’t want to be a bother.”  
  
“Well then don’t be.” Professor Smythe smiled. “You can let me be a windbag on the drive. My students hardly ever have the patience to listen to my stories anymore.”  
  
Now it would be rude to refuse, and that might attract another kind of notice that Lance didn’t want. “Thank you, Professor.”  
  
“You’re not one of my students, you may call me Coran.”  
  
It was pleasant to be in an air-conditioned moving vehicle that wasn’t filled with the mingled scents of strangers. Coran’s sun-bleached scent put Lance even more at ease as he gave directions on how to get to the hotel. True to his word, Coran began spinning fantastical stories about his boyhood in New Zealand being raised by his grandfather. If his grandfather had done half of the things Coran claimed he did, Lance wondered why he’d never heard of him.  
  
“But enough about Pop Pop’s impressive accomplishments. It’s not many people who can impel Mr. Aguirre into behaving in an almost respectable manner. You’re quite impressive in your own right, young man.”  
  
Lance was at a loss. “Mr. Aguirre?”  
  
“Keith,” Coran clarified. “I have no idea what his patronymic is. He only ever goes by his mother’s name. Difficult to know, that one, but I have high hopes of drawing our hermit crab out of his shell eventually.”  
  
“I don’t know that I did anything, except expect him to cooperate,” Lance admitted.   
  
“Then that must have done just the trick.”   
  
Lance supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that Keith was not a stranger to Coran. It had seemed as if Allura already knew him, and that his presence wasn’t as random as the other mock jurors. He really hoped Coran wasn’t trying to play matchmaker. He found Keith’s company a bracing distraction, but he was not ready for romance, and he didn’t think Keith was looking for love either, if he was reading him right.  
  
Heaven knows he’d had reason to doubt his instincts of late.  
  
“Here we are.” Coran pulled into the parking lot of the hotel. “I stayed in lodging much like this when I first arrived on these shores. Smartly appointed, aren’t they? At least for the short term.”  
  
Lance recognized when he was being gently prodded for information. “Thank you for the ride,” he said, smiling in genuine, if guarded, gratitude.  
  
“You’re quite welcome,” Coran replied, and then he reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a small square of card-stock paper. “Here is my card. If you ever require a lift again, don’t hesitate to give me a ring.”  
  
“Thank you.” Lance took the card, the second contact he’d been offered freely in less than a week’s time. Even if he didn’t use it, it still meant something. He held it close to his chest as he watched the Honda turn in the parking lot and drive away.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Coran ambled up the walk to the stucco neo-eclectic that had once belonged to one of his dearest friends and now belonged to that late friend’s daughter. Alfor had moved himself into an equestrian community and then charmed the HOA into allowing him to convert the property’s stable into a guest suite so he could subsidize the housing of a student in need. That student had been Coran, and he’d not been the last to use that suite.  
  
The current resident of the guest suite was a criminal justice major who, if the Roky Erickson music wailing from an open bedroom window was anything to judge by, was probably not going to be joining them for dinner.  
  
That was fine. Keith was among the topics of dinner conversation Coran had been hoping to discuss with Allura anyway. It would be easier to do so without him physically in the room, glaring suspiciously every time he or Allura referenced an ‘angry kitten’ that was mysteriously only seen when he was not present.  
  
“You’re late,” Allura’s smile belied the admonishment as she met him in front of the double entry doors.  
  
“My deepest apologies.” Coran greeted her with a friendly peck on the crown of her head, which she accepted graciously. “I was taking the young omega Lance back to his domicile.”  
  
“Oh?” Allura excelled at schooling her vocal inflections to sound like whatever she wanted to portray, which in this case was politely interested, but she’d always had difficulty extending that skill to her body language and facial expressions. She leaned towards the person she was talking to with eyes slightly widened whenever she wanted to hear more about something, like she was doing right now.  
  
“Yes indeed.” Coran looked around and gave a listen for a potential eavesdropper.  
  
 ♬ _If you call it surprise, there it is… the moon to the left of me is a part of my thoughts, is a part of me, is me…_   ♬  
  
“Oh, don’t worry, he’s holed up in the suite for the rest of the night, or so he told me.” Allura led Coran inside to the eat-in kitchen, a more intimate and casual setting for two old friends than the house’s elegant but rather stuffy dining room.  
  
“Do you believe the omega is interested in our Keith?” Allura asked as she brought samosas and chutney from the kitchen counter and placed them on the palazzo table.  
  
“The omega’s name is Lance,” Coran reminded her as he opened his contribution to dinner, a bottle of fruity pinot noir with lots of plum and cherry on the finish. “I don’t believe they’ve made a love connection, but I do believe they’d make great friends.” The sisterly way Allura had attached herself to her tenant amused Coran and made him proud. She was her father’s daughter.  
  
Allura pouted as she checked a pot on the hob, which from the wonderful aroma must be the vindaloo that they were both going to pretend she hadn’t picked up from her favorite Indian market on her way home. “I thought for sure a male omega would pique his interest. This one was even a prime, and he smelled quite lovely.”  
  
Allura was operating on the theory that Keith just needed a love interest to get him to emerge from the safety of his rooms and smile more often, and the only reason the handsome but reclusive young man didn’t already have one was because he hadn’t met the right omega.  
  
“Darling girl, I think you’re going to have to face the fact that Keith might not be romantically interested in omegas at all.”  
  
Allura brooded on that as she helped Coran set the table. “A beta then? Have I been neglecting to introduce him to date-worthy betas?”  
  
Leave it to Allura to decide that the reason her matchmaking had failed was because she hadn’t thrown enough potential mates in the boy’s path.   
  
“Maybe the omega didn’t realize that Keith was single?”   
  
Also leave it to Allura to get right back on the original track without pause.  
  
“Lance,” Coran reminded her again. “The omega’s name is Lance. I have reason to believe that Lance is on the mend from an unwanted bite and is therefore not welcoming the attention of suitors, to put it in polite terms.”  
  
“I did wonder about that,” Allura admitted quietly. So, she had noticed the bandage too. She could be both obtuse and observant at once sometimes. Most times it was charming, but occasionally it was just a tad bit frustrating.  
  
Lance had tried to hide the bandage under his hoodie, but Coran had seen more traumatized omegas while volunteering at the university’s crisis center than he’d ever imagined he could. One never forgot certain things.  
  
“But that doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t be good for Keith as a friend,” Coran said decisively as he poured the wine. “He seems to be quite a capable fellow. If anyone can encourage Keith to relax and take a more accepting view of his omega traits, I believe it’s this chap.”  
  
That, to Coran’s way of thinking, was the real crux of the problem. Granted, he didn’t know a great whacking lot about Keith’s background, but he did know that he was the product of an alpha marriage. ‘Better as lovers than as friends’ was the adage about alpha marriages, an uncommon but persistent phenomenon due to their tendency to produce higher than average alpha birth rates in addition to their higher than average divorce rates. Sometimes they were passionate love matches, but often they were power plays, uniting bloodlines and greatly improving the odds of an alpha scion to inherit the family fortune.   
  
Of course, that alpha scion might have some genetic anomalies, as the families who participated in the practice the most frequently tended to marry along consanguineous lines. Keith had never said whether this was the case with him, but if he was the product of a dynastic match, then his presentation must have been a deeply uncomfortable experience for him. He seemed uneasy about his own omega qualities, and this sometimes manifested as uneasiness around omegas.  
  
Until today. Coran had started to develop a plan after watching Lance brush off Keith’s attitude with such delightful aplomb that it put him as much at ease as Coran had ever seen him, and that plan had crystallized as soon as he’d seen where Lance was living. Yes, this was a good plan.  
  
“I’m going to invite Lance to fix up the Mariposa Lane house.”  
  
Allura paused in laying out woven place-mats to look at Coran like she was thinking about ringing up the funny farm. “Coran, you’ve known him less than twenty-four hours.”  
  
“Yes, and in that time, I’ve found him to be industrious, scrupulous and unpretentious. Most people would have just let Keith walk all over them, or worse yet, let Mr. Varkon have his way unimpeded, but he took control of that lot and then didn’t abuse the power they gave him.”  
  
Allura brought over the covered pot of vindaloo and set it on a place-mat. “Does he know anything about home repairs?” Behind her in the kitchen, the rice cooker clicked, and the stay warm indicator light came on.  
  
Coran went to the kitchen and took the potholders down off their hook. “The house is not in that terrible condition. It’s just dirty.” He lifted the inner pot out of the rice cooker and brought it to the table. “ Mostly.”  
  
Allura laughed out loud at him. “It’s filthy. If no maid service in Maricopa County will touch it, why would the omega? Lance,” she added hurriedly when he shot her a raised eyebrow.   
  
“Because I will offer to let him live in it whilst he’s fixing it up.” Coran picked up a samosa and had a nibble as he took his place at the table. “These are delicious, you’ve outdone yourself Allura.”  
  
“Don’t try to distract me.” Allura spooned some chutney onto her plate, dipped a samosa and took a bite. “These are quite good, aren’t they? No, I won’t be distracted. This is me not being distracted.” She made a show of putting down the samosa and placing her hands in her lap. “What is going on, Coran?”  
  
So, Coran told her of the living situation he’d discovered when he’d dropped off Lance, and his impressions of Lance’s wary behavior. “Useful hands and a secure place to lay his head. It may be just what he needs.”  
  
“But Coran,” Allura fidgeted with the napkin in her lap, “what if the alpha who tried to mark him shows up there at the house?”  
  
“I will cross that bridge once I arrive at it.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Sadak Sendak trod barefoot on the plankway down to the water, tiny grains of sand slipping between his toes as the weathered boards roughened his heels. He had returned to the house on Cape Cod to pack up what needed to go into storage and lay slipcovers over the rest like shrouds. He would be leaving for Boston in the morning, but before that he had to visit the sound.   
  
The final resting place of his Laurel. The only grave he would ever be able stand over and know that Laurel was really there. A cenotaph had been commissioned for the family mausoleum, but it would be empty and colder than the waters before him.  
  
Sea and sky merged in shades of blue-grey, like the feathers of a young mourning dove. Laurel used to stare at it with such intensity. Sendak would wonder how he could just stand there, looking at nothing at all. Now he wondered if somehow Laurel had recognized it was the last thing he would ever see. Omega’s intuition.  
  
“Damn!” The coarseness of wood and sand was suddenly replaced by a sharp pain on the ball of his foot. “Son of a bitch.”   
  
Sendak leaned heavily on the wooden rail to lift his foot and turn it over. There was a shard of ridged glass embedded in it. He hissed as he pulled the shard from his foot and looked at where he’d just been walking. The ground was littered with shattered pieces of whatever this glass had originally been.  
  
He scanned his surroundings until he found the source. The post lights had been forcibly put out.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> piropos - In English they are called pickup lines, but the literal translation is closer to flirtatious flattery.
> 
> No eres tan malo - "You're not so bad."
> 
> Igualmente - "Likewise"


	5. Angel In The House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coran makes his pitch to Lance. Lance has to deal with something from his past, and the memories associated with it. Sendak receives an alarming phone call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for the kudos, it is much appreciated!

 

Mature desert willows lined the street, with fragrant ruby buds stubbornly clinging to their branches even though autumn had begun to encroach a little more into their blooming season each night. Lance was happy to have their shade as he strolled down the lane looking for the address Coran had given him over the phone.  
  
Coran had offered to pick him up, but Lance had opted to ride over on the bus. It turned out to be two hours transit time to get to the neighboring town of Gilbert. The Phoenix metropolitan area was a massive sprawl, and buses were not the fastest way to traverse it. He might take Coran up on his offer to drive him back, regardless of whether he took him up on this offer to fix up a vacant house.  
  
_(“It was Mrs. Balmer’s house. She worked at the law library, bless her soul, and I must have made an impression on her because she willed the house to me. Now I would like to do some good with it in honor of her memory, but, well. It’s in a bit of a rough state, and I find myself unable to devote enough time to give it the care it deserves.”)_  
  
It seemed too good to be true, but Lance was low key starting to panic, so he couldn’t afford to turn down the opportunity without at least checking it out first. He had four days left on his hotel booking, and he still wasn’t sure about where he was going to live or how he was going to be making a living. He wasn’t broke yet, but he could rapidly become that way if he didn’t get some regular income and get out of a weekly rental into a monthly (" _weekly will only save you money on a mortgage, mijo"_ ).  
  
He’d explored the busking option and been happy to discover he didn’t need a permit to busk in the downtown area, but when he’d gone downtown to lay out his hat he’d had serious competition. Omega male voices were well-known to have an appealing elastic quality, which he’d been banking on making up for the lack of accompaniment to his singing. It hadn’t been a bust, but he’d have probably done about as well stealing all the change from the nearby wishing fountain. Nearly every other busker out there was a music student practicing to get over stage fright, and they were all freaking brilliant. So, busking was going to have to be reserved as an emergency laundromat money option instead of his main gig, unless he could manage to join up with a group of those music students.  
  
He’d also called on some of the banquet server ads and had gotten invited to serve at a hastily put-together wedding reception in a hotel only slightly nicer than the one where he was living. They were so desperate for temporary wait staff that they put him in an apron and shoved him into the reception hall with the instructions _“fill drinks”_ and left him to it.  
  
The bride was a young female omega in the family way and the groom was an older female alpha who kept getting distracted by her phone through the entire reception, and it was depressing because Lance couldn’t help but think back to his own wedding, equally hastily put together though for different reasons. The job was also three hours on his feet getting his butt groped by old alphas and ducking away from the wedding photographer’s lens, all for just thirty dollars compensation. Plus the tips, but twenty percent of that meager take had been swiped by management in the name of tip sharing when they’d cashed him out at the end of the night. Add banquet serving to the ‘emergency bucks only’ list.  
  
The street where Coran’s ‘house in need of TLC’ resided was in an older neighborhood of ranch style houses with diverse landscaping choices. Everywhere Lance looked there was a different expression of what a front yard was supposed to look like. Here was a house with a yard paved in bricks, and there was one with pebbles. Here was a yard with a rock garden, there was one with cacti. Here was a guy who said, ‘screw it, let’s just turn the front yard into a gravel parking lot,’ and there was a guy who probably spent a small fortune on sulfur and irrigation maintaining a verdant lawn in alkaline soil. There must not be an HOA in this neighborhood.  
  
Lance smiled his pleasure at the creativity of the viewscapes. Nobody could ever get bored walking around in this neighborhood.  
  
He spotted Coran standing beside a front door painted a marigold nearly as aureate as his hair. The house’s exterior was Payne’s grey adobe brick, with a parched lawn and a thriving desert willow tree at the edge of the front yard. The driveway, which led to an attached carport, had some cracks in the concrete through which purply-blue lupine determinedly sprouted up. He took note of a side door and a backyard fence ( _"always know where your exits are, kid"_ ) before turning up the short walk to meet Coran.  
  
“Glad you could make it! How was your travel?”  
  
“It was longer than I thought it was going to be,” Lance admitted.  
  
“Well if you lived here, you’d be home by now.” Coran winked and unlocked the door. “I know I warned you of this already, but I feel I must restate the case that the place is a bit of a mess. But it’s a fixable mess!”  
  
Lance couldn’t help thinking that a sledgehammer could fix this mess, as he surveyed the dark, grungy cave that was probably once a living room. A pile of sticks which might be furniture teetered toward the ceiling against the far wall.  
  
Coran went to the windows to open the curtains, letting in daylight and raising great plumes of dust. “It’s… it’s a bit dusty,” he said.  
  
A bit?  
  
“But the building is structurally sound! Ryner assured me of that. She’s the inspector I had come in and look the place over, marvelous lady. She said the pipes are all in good working order and the wiring is up to code. There are not a lot of circuits in this house at present, but there should be enough outlets to get a start on cleaning up the place. I can have the utilities turned on for you within the next two days. That’s of course if you decide you want the job.”  
  
Lance followed Coran through an entryway into a kitchen, where he raised grubby wooden blinds to let in the light. The side door he’d noticed earlier led in here next to the pantry. An old GE four-burner electric range crouched between the cabinets, bearing the stains of dinners past on its white enameled-steel hide. What looked like a genuine Chromcraft table slouched sadly against the decushioned built-in banquette.  
  
“That stove might not look like much, but it is operational, they were built to last in those days. The refrigerator works as well, when the power’s on. Have a look.”  
  
The fridge, also a GE, was a vintage bottom freezer type which was meant to be varicolored, but the colors were veiled with grime. Gingerly, Lance pulled on the top door handle. It popped open with a desiccated sigh. The inside of the door had bins for condiments, and that top bin which old fridges had for butter and eggs, but which most people he’d known while growing up used for storing medication and Jean Naté. Inside the fridge were three vented metal half-moon shelves, suspended above two opaque crisper drawers.    
  
“They’re lazy Susans!” Coran said excitedly. “Look!” He pulled on a half-moon shelf, which swung out 360 degrees before clicking back into place. “Neat, aren’t they?”  
  
“Yes.” Lance couldn’t help smiling at the man’s excitability. And it was kind of neat. Why didn’t refrigerator manufacturers make shelving like that anymore? Nobody would ever accidentally spill an open can of Hi-C all over the back of the fridge with shelves like these.  
  
“The crispers are the same, watch.” Coran swung the crisper door out, and now Lance could see that it wasn’t two pull out drawers as he’d assumed at first glance, but two compartments shaped like candy corn. He could also see muck in the bottom.  
  
“It ah, it needs some cleaning that’s all.” Coran pushed the crisper drawer back into place and then pulled open the bottom door on the refrigerator. “The freezer has lots of room for ice cream and waffles and what-have-you.”  
  
The freezer compartment contained two metal baskets which looked convenient for reaching in and out for large icy items. There was a fan in the back of the compartment that was for circulating the cold air, and there was residue in there which Lance hoped wasn’t alive.  
  
“The linoleum has held up quite well, just needs a good scrub to put it in tip top shape.”  
  
Lance was inclined to agree with that assessment. He’d noticed the blue mosaic design back in the living room when Coran had let the daylight in, and how the design extended into the kitchen. It might be pretty after the dirt was mopped off it.  
  
“This flooring was installed in 1987, so no need to worry about asbestos.”  
  
…that thought had not even crossed Lance’s mind until just now. He followed Coran through a short hallway with three rooms leading off it like spokes on a wagon wheel.  
  
“Here is the spare bedroom.” Coran opened the door to the room on the right. “Or you can use it as your bedroom, but it’s smaller and the window looks out on the front yard, you can spy on the neighbors from here I suppose.”  
  
He went to the window and opened the curtains, revealing hideous sculptured carpeting to the light of day. It had probably been orange at some point in its history. It wasn’t anymore.  
  
“This carpet needs a good wash. Or just to be pulled up altogether I reckon.”  
  
Lance reckoned Coran was right. At least the exposed adobe brick walls looked nice. Maybe better for an office than for a bedroom, though.  
  
“Here we have the bathroom.” Coran opened the door in the middle. “As you can see, there are different stylistic eras represented in here. It’s somewhat whimsical, you might say.”  
  
Lance could see. There were tiny blue herringbone tiles on the floor and large grey square-grid tiles on the walls. He wasn’t sure if the grout was supposed to look dark grey or not. The tub, toilet and sink had patches of turquoise showing from beneath crusted-on dirt. The fact that the fixtures were designed to suit the comfort of betas and only betas was the least of its problems. Whimsical. Yes, that was a word.  
  
“And here we have the master bedroom.” Coran opened a narrow door across from the sink which led into the next room, which also had a door leading off the hall. “Mrs. Balmer put parquet flooring in here. She took good care of it, right up until the end.”  
  
When Coran opened the curtains this time, Lance could see the possibilities. Heart pine parquet shone in warm tones of honey and amber through the thin layer of dust covering it. Mrs. Balmer had indeed taken good care of this flooring. It must have been oiled and buffed regularly before the house fell into disrepair. Someone had also left behind a double bed frame with floating nightstands in a finish complimentary to the flooring. The walls were a veritable explosion of twee floral wallpaper, but that could probably be painted over.  
  
Wait, when did he decide he was going to take care of this place?  
  
“Last but not least, there’s a fenced-in backyard.” Coran led Lance back out through the bedroom’s hallway door, past the kitchen and through the door leading onto the covered back porch. There was a washer and dryer set out there that had probably once been avocado green but had weathered to pistachio, along with what looked like an air conditioning unit.  
  
“This house is too small for a utility room, so the washer and dryer are plugged in out here with the evaporative cooler,” Coran explained. “But not to worry, Mrs. Balmer installed a dedicated circuit on the porch for the appliances. I’ve been meaning to put up some sort of enclosure to give them better protection from the elements, but I keep getting sidetracked by other responsibilities.”  
  
The garden center of a hardware store might have something handy for that. Damn it. He was really going to do this wasn’t he? He looked out into the backyard to stall for time to reconsider the decision he’d already arrived at.  
  
Purslane bloomed in raised beds just off the porch, and Lance knew their leaves could be harvested for food. Bermuda grass grew patchy in the backyard to the fence line. Some of that land could be converted to a vegetable garden, maybe. A grey tree lifted naked supplicating branches to the sky in a corner abutting a neighbor’s yard. He wasn’t entirely sure what could be done for the tree. His mother would have known. He’d helped her bring citrus trees back from root rot before, but this was not a citrus tree and he couldn’t tell what was wrong with it just by looking at it. Not like Mamá could have done.  
  
“I’ve had Holt Family Nurseries out to prune the apple tree,” Coran said, as if reading his mind, or, more than likely, his body language. “They said I could save the tree by strengthening its root system, and the quickest way to do that would be removing the grass which is using up all the water and nutrients around it. But then they said that I could accidentally harm the tree’s roots if I try to uproot grass too close to it, and I’ve no idea how far is far enough to avoid harm. So, I’ve just been following the Holts’ instructions for mulching and watering and hoping for the best.”  
  
Lance felt a blossom of hope unfurl in his chest. Now he knew what to do.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Coran treated him to a late lunch at a Mexican restaurant near his hotel, where they worked out the details of Lance’s caretaking position over tacos and elote. Coran would get the utilities turned on and pick Lance up in three days with a load of cleaning and gardening supplies, along with tools he had asked for. He would be letting Lance stay in the house rent free, at least to start, and giving him what he called a modest allowance for groceries and any further supplies he might require, as well as permission to gain outside employment if he felt the need. Lance tried to maintain a straight face when he heard the figure Coran suggested for the allowance. The terms were far more generous than Sadak had ever been with him, and he had been married to Sadak.  
  
Lance figured he would want to use his last prepaid night at the hotel for showering and sleeping in a clean bed, because he would first need to scour one room of the house into a livable state before starting on the rest. He didn’t mention this to Coran. He knew it meant more long bus rides in his immediate future, but he didn’t want to risk overtaxing the man’s willingness to drive him around, and he also wanted one last chance to clear his thoughts and make sure he felt good about the arrangement before he was in the arrangement. The last time he’d rushed in despite doubts he’d wound up bitterly regretting it.  
  
In the meantime, he had two free days to get his affairs in order, such as they were. He’d start with the laundry. He took the plastic bag where he’d been storing his dirty items and dumped its contents on the hotel room floor to sort it. A circle of gold fell out onto the flat-weave carpet, rolling to a stop where it glinted under the overhead light.  
  
Lance knelt and stared at it a moment before reaching down to pick it up.  
  
“Forgot about you.” He held it over his ring finger a moment, and then palmed it instead. The laundry would have to wait a little longer.  
  
He put on his hoodie, took the elevator to the ground floor and moseyed up to the front desk, where Ursula was leaning on the check-in window looking bored.  
  
“Hey Ursula. You know anyplace I can sell an unwanted gold ring?”  
  
“Yeah.” Her candy cane scent perked up with a dash of extra peppermint. “There’s a gold buyer in a strip mall a little way from here. They put their brochures in the lobby.” She pointed at the tourist brochure rack.  
  
“Oh.” So they did. “Thanks! Has anyone ever told you that you should be working in a classier joint than this?”  
  
“Yeah, but then they’d make me change my hair, so nah.”  
  
Lance had a forty-five-minute bus ride to do nothing but think about the implications of what he was doing. It had only been a week since he’d gone to extreme lengths to terminate his marriage. He had barely given himself time to reflect on it, too busy with traveling, then how to keep on living. When he really thought about it he’d just been surviving for years, even in the posh confinement of Sadak’s keeping.  
  
He remembered the night Sadak had given him the ring. He had been in tears. They had not been tears of joy. He should have taken that for the omen it was.  
  
_(“Hush Laurel, don’t cry. We’ll make our own family, you and me. Any interloper who means our family harm will have to come through me first. You will never have to live in fear again.”)_  
  
That had been a lie. Oh, marriage to Sadak had saved him from the machinations of Drago Bosque Bocar, a Cuban alpha who had shown up out of the blue claiming to be his father. The only fathers Lance remembered were a kind beta named Manfredo Valdes Diaz who had died when he was little, and Dad. He did not know Bocar and did not want to know him after finding out about the way he’d hounded his mother literally to death.  
  
Thanks to Sadak’s intervention he didn’t even have to submit to a paternity test when Bocar tried to claim rights of progenitor, an old custom that gave alphas rights over their biological omega offspring as well as the unpresented offspring of any omega they claimed. Rights of progenitor were seldom ever honored in developed countries anymore, but some of the old laws had yet to be purged from the books.  
  
Yes, Sadak had saved him from whatever the hell Bocar had in mind – probably an alliance marriage, that’s what it usually was when an alpha tried to dust off forgotten progenitor laws – but then he’d brought him into an entirely new realm of fear. At first Lance thought he deserved it somehow. He didn’t know what had transpired between his mother and Bocar, but his suspicions, they tormented him.  
  
Then he thought of the many times his mother could have given him up if she had needed to. Before his birth and after it, there had been options available to her if she had decided she couldn’t keep him. She certainly hadn’t needed to take him along when she’d run. Whatever else had or hadn’t happened, she had brought him to Hialeah with her by choice and raised him with care, and he could trust in the certainty of that.  
  
The scrap gold buyer offered Lance three hundred dollars for his courtship ring. He knew he could get a better price pawning it than selling it for scrap, but if he did that then he’d have to live with wondering if knowledge of the ring’s continued existence would somehow make its way to Sadak’s attention. A courtship ring of that craftsmanship would likely wind up advertised on the internet if he pawned it. Selling it for scrap meant the ring would soon be melted down to be made into something else.  
  
He accepted the scrap buyer’s offer with a clear conscience and no qualms about the ring’s value.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance spent the next day cleaning the room and doing laundry, as well as research on his phone to work out some ideas for protecting the tree and the appliances on the porch. He was going to take advantage of the hotel’s free Wi-Fi while he still could, because after he got to the house he’d be using 4G and it would eat up his prepaid data every time he went on the internet. He checked his free email account and then he checked his PayPal balance and nearly fell out of the laundry room’s plastic chair.  
  
Dorma had direct deposited his entire final paycheck into his PayPal account. Not just the discrete percentage he’d been asking her to deposit. The whole thing. She must have found his other go-bag. Either she had figured out what he’d done, or she just didn’t want Sadak to have the money. Lance felt grateful to have had the friendship of a person like Dorma, and low again to have made her think for even a moment that he was dead. He wished he could get a message to her to tell her, but he knew he couldn’t risk it.  
  
His final free day he spent sprawled in bed, binge watching Supernatural and eating Vienna sausages straight out of the can. What the hell, he’d missed three years of episodes and it was marathoning on cable, and this might be the last time he could watch cable TV for another while.  
  
He shook a Vienna sausage at the screen. “Don’t do it Sam, it’s a trap!”  
  
The following day, he got up early to load up on bananas and coffee from the lobby before Coran arrived to take him to his new caretaker job.  
  
“Is this everything then?” Coran asked the question as if he couldn’t quite believe it.  
  
“Yep.” Lance had his duffel (now with most of his clean clothes and beach towel in it) and himself. Honestly, he didn’t know what else Coran thought he’d be bringing. He knew Lance lived in a hotel. Was he expecting more luggage? He did have the string bag with the remains of his groceries, but he’d be packing that out tomorrow.  
  
“Well then. Let’s be off!”  
  
Lance waved at Ursula as they walked out of the building. They drove into the soft colors of the new morning, a pink horizon with a sky of robin’s egg blue above them.  
  
“I hope you don’t mind me listening to ELO on the drive.” Coran had started to put a CD in the tray but hesitated.  
  
“Of course not.” It was Coran’s car, Lance thought he should listen to whatever he pleased.  
  
“Splendid!” He closed the tray shut with a rock of his finger.  
  
Piano tinkled over the speakers, underscored with rich bass and a shower of synthesizer embellishments.  
  
 ♬ _Why do I say, don’t walk away. You’ll be the way you were before, when you don’t want me anymore…_    ♬  
  
“Oh!” Lance couldn’t describe the tender feeling that lit suddenly in his chest, except that it was almost as old as his own memory.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“I… I think I know this song.”  
  
“Really?” Coran seemed surprised. “It’s from a rather old movie.”  
  
“I didn’t hear this from a movie.”  
  
Lance remembered his mother, swaying in the arms of a man with black hair while music came out of a transistor radio’s silver speaker. He didn’t remember why Manfredo wanted to dance with his mother to this song, if there was even a reason. They danced in the casita often, but this seemed different, slow dancing in circles around the colorful terrazzo floor. One could almost imagine they were in a ballroom if they hadn’t been dressed in everyday cotton and linen, with daylight pouring in through the open shutters. He hadn’t understood the lyrics at the time. He had been very young. He just knew that it was supposed to be romantic (although he’d only had a child’s notion of what ‘romantic’ was) and that he was supposed to be napping.  
  
“I can switch to a different song if this is making you uncomfortable.”  
  
“No, please.” Lance reached out to stop him from pushing the shuffle play button. “I want to hear the whole song.”  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
Lance nodded. “Yes, I’m sure.”  
  
He wanted to fix in his mind all the times he had seen his mother happy so that he could pull the memories out like photographs, since he’d never again be able to see her smile in this world. They listened to the album on shuffle all the way to the house. “Don’t Walk Away” played once more, and Lance resolved to find as many of his mother’s favorites as he could and add them to his tiny music collection.  
  
The urgent strings of “Livin’ Thing” poured out of the car’s speakers as they pulled up under the carport.  
  
“Here we are,” said Coran as he shut off the ignition and popped the hatchback, “and here are your keys.” He held out his hand and in it were two keys on a key-chain made with a real four-leaf clover sealed in resin. “You can never have too much luck.”  
  
Lance took the keys, feeling humbled by the kindnesses, both large and small, that this man kept heaping on him. “Thank you.”  
  
Coran just smiled and then helped him unload the Honda’s cargo compartment.  
  
They spent a few extra minutes replacing overhead light bulbs and checking to make sure the water was running clear before Coran regretfully took his leave.  
  
“We’re barely two weeks into Fall semester and my office hours are chock-a-block with appointments. First year law students are a demanding bunch.”  
   
“I understand.”  
  
“It goes without saying, but if you happen to find anything in the cupboards or closets, you’re more than welcome to put them to use.”  
  
Lance was glad he’d said it anyway. “Thank you.” He had a feeling he’d be saying that a lot to him over the coming days.  
  
Coran just smiled again. “It’s no trouble at all.”  
  
Lance watched Coran’s CRV disappear around a corner and then stood there a moment listening to the chattering song of Warblers hidden somewhere in the trees nearby and feeling the early sun warm his face. This was his place, at least for now. He had a place!  
  
He just had to clean it. Only this time he’d be doing it for his own sake, at his own pace, with no mercurial taskmaster to appease. He got to work.  
  
He went to the bathroom and scoured out the tub and then filled it with scalding hot water, liquid Dawn and bleach. He snapped on rubber gloves and pulled all the drawers out of the fridge and freezer and set them in the tub to soak. He added the range drip bowls and the oven rack to the tub soak, and then he put on a dust mask and got out the ladder to sort through the cupboards, poking into them carefully with the scrub brush in case of spiders. You never knew when you were going to find spiders.  
  
He didn’t find any spiders (whew) but he did find some sunflower-patterned stoneware, an enameled steel saucepan and a glass suntea jug, which he took out for washing later. Then he scrubbed out the cabinets and pantry with vinegar and baking soda, and left the doors open to dry.  
  
He plugged in the box fan he’d asked Coran for, and then opened all the kitchen windows and the side door. He diluted some degreaser in the bucket and got to work on the ceiling and walls with the telescoping scrubber. By the time he was done with that he was starting to feel a little lightheaded.  
  
He stopped what he was doing to fill his filter bottle with water from the tap, and to snarf down a few granola bars. The tap water still tasted bitter. He made a mental note to ask Coran if he’d be open to investing in a water softener. He was confident he could install it, he’d helped Dad fix the one at the Hialeah house often enough.  
  
His stomach settled, and his faculties sharpened from the sustenance. Break time was over. He pulled the Chromcraft table away from the banquette and discovered it was in workable condition if he kept the leaf extension closed. He flipped it and scrubbed the legs with crumpled aluminum until the chrome shone. He flipped it again and wiped down the top with liquid Dawn, discovering that what he’d thought was a faux marble surface was speckled laminate, with little gold chips sparkling up out of aqua swirls under the overhead light. Then he cleaned up the banquette with Murphy’s Oil. He might be throwing his sleeping bag on that bench tomorrow night, with a blue life vest to pillow his head.  
  
After going through a few buckets of degreaser, the range and oven looked significantly less decrepit. Lance cleaned the refrigerator, sink and countertops with Bon Ami, the fridge cleaning up blue on the freezer door and white on the refrigerator door with chrome trim. Then he swept the floor dust up and stepped out onto the carport for a breath of fresh air. He threw an extra-lanky shadow on the concrete, evidence that he might need to think about heading for the bus stop soon.  
  
He went inside and checked the time on his phone. He could still finish his first pass on cleaning the kitchen. He changed the bleached tub water for just hot water with Dawn and filled the sink with more soapy water to soak the dishes he’d found, then checked the cupboards – they were dry. He hid his duffel inside of one.  
  
He closed and locked all the windows he’d opened. Then he wet the mop with diluted vinegar and mopped his way out of the kitchen to the side door and locked up.  
  
His arms and legs burned with industrious fatigue as he walked briskly to the bus stop with the last of the light. He couldn’t keep the grin off his face.  
  
It had been a good day, and it was only the first one.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Sendak tried to make himself comfortable against the hard seat of the tulip chair as Honerva watched him from across her desk in blatant amusement. Female alphas tended to find the indignities associated with external testicles hilarious.  
  
“I wish you’d reconsider,” she said, leaning her elbows on the polished black surface of her desk. “Lada is very open to meeting with you. Respectfully, of course.”  
  
“It’s too soon.”  
  
In terms of securing an heir to his family name and fortune, it was not too soon for a childless alpha widower such as himself to begin preliminary negotiations for a potential mate to replace the one he’d lost, and Lada Nock’s lineage was reputable enough to be given all due consideration. An alpha herself, she could no doubt help him create alpha children to carry on both their names. If his parents had still been alive, they’d have been harassing him to get over himself and accept the meeting.  
  
However, Sendak had never wanted a marriage like the one his parents had, fighting with each other and keeping omega mistresses on the side, and then fighting about any time or money spent on the omega mistresses. He’d decided at an early age to skip the fighting and marry his omega. A traditional mateship, like the kind deified in story and song. Then he’d found Laurel, who had come with some unexpected complications, but faint heart never won fair omega.  
  
He’d considered the possibility that he might outlive his omega, but he’d never dreamed it would happen before he was forty. Now every alpha he knew was trying to set him up with an alpha female they knew. Society abhorred an unmated alpha of courting age.  
  
He didn’t care. If he couldn’t have Laurel, he’d wait until he found another omega of equal worth. He knew where to find plenty of omegas of similar stock, but none of those had the benefit of an upbringing like Laurel’s. The perfect alchemy had created for him the perfect mate. Who knew if the stars would ever align in such a pattern again?  
  
“If you’re sure.” Honerva ticked one manicured nail on the desk. The currant note in her scent curled toward him speculatively, asking him to think it over one more time.  
  
Of course, that wouldn’t work on him. Some alphas could use their scent to manipulate other alphas if they knew what they were doing, and Honerva did. But Sendak was also a prime, so he was immune to it.  
  
“I’m sure.”  
  
He looked out of her office suite’s exterior windows at downtown Boston glistering below them. She had one of the smaller offices in terms of floor space, leading the other partners to overlook it when they’d moved into this building. She had cannily accepted it because it had the best view.  
  
There was a polite tap on the door.  
  
“Enter,” said Honerva.  
  
Honerva’s legal secretary, a quiet beta who habitually wore the most conservative tweed suits Sendak ever seen, stepped just inside the threshold. “Pardon my intrusion, serah.” Always so formal with that one.  
  
“Be at ease, Narda. What requires my attention?”  
  
Narda’s eyes flickered toward Sendak, and he picked up a molecule of her scent, a faintly oily odor that reminded him of nondairy coffee creamer. This was notable because Honerva liked to keep her own walnut and currant scent circulating throughout her environment. It was not only that Honerva had a particularly strong scent, but that she had also gone to the expense of having it synthesized and used it as an air freshener in her office. It usually smothered every other scent in the vicinity, unless the bearer of the opposing scent was a prime, or in a heightened emotional state of some sort.  
  
“Mr. Sendak has an urgent call.”  
  
Narda was right to be worried.  
  
Honerva drew herself up in her ergonomic chair, eyes narrowed. The walnut note in her scent turned rancid and rolled through the room in bitter waves. “And you felt it needful to interrupt this meeting instead of taking a message?” Her voice was low and dangerous.  
  
Narda threw herself down prostrate on the wool carpet. “My most humble apologies, serah.”  
  
It was a smart move, if a bit belated. Honerva never forgot a perceived slight, but she could accede to restraint when presented with a suitable show of penitence. “Explain yourself,” she said.  
  
“A woman from the Veteran’s Affairs office called for Mr. Sendak,” said Narda, voice muffled. “I told her that he was in a very important meeting and could not be disturbed, but she said that if I did not get him to the phone right away then she would go to the news media.”  
  
Ah, yes. That bit of business.  
  
“What is this about?” Honerva looked to Sendak.  
  
Narda remained on the floor.  
  
“I’ll take care of it,” Sendak said, standing and finally releasing his frame from that pitiful excuse for a chair.  
  
“I trust that this won’t reflect badly on the firm,” were the words that came out of Honerva’s mouth, but her severe expression said, ‘you’d damn well better take care of it.’  
  
“Leave it to me,” said Sendak, as he stepped over Narda to exit the office into the glass hallway.  
  
The firm of Galiyar, Haggart, Yorba & Corsair had glass interior walls because Zakir Haggart-Galiyar liked to be able to observe his underlings unobstructed as he made his rounds. The level of smoke in the glass was equivalent to the level of seniority of an office’s occupant. Honerva’s glass was pitch black. Sendak’s was mocha.  
  
He settled back into his own synchro-tilter chair, stretching his legs out under the desk. The display on his office phone showed Olia Railton waiting on line one. His finger hovered over the speakerphone button, and then withdrew. He did not want this conversation overheard. He opted for the wireless headset.  
  
As her voice screeched into his earpiece, it occurred to him that if he’d gone with the corded receiver he could have at least held it away from his ear, but he knew he would want to get up and pace while talking to this insufferable woman, and he wasn’t proved wrong.  
  
_“I can’t believe you! Of all the nerve!”_  
  
“I’ve had a specialist go over the latest results of Mr. McClain’s scans and I have every confidence in his assertion that the man will never wake up.” He had every confidence that the doctor’s assessment would hold up in court. “I simply see no reason to extend his life indefinitely when the only thing he has to contribu-”  
  
_“Well you’re damn lucky he woke up then, asshole! Saved yourself a lawsuit over the conditions of your spouse’s will! You wanted to sell his organs?!”_  
  
He woke up? “I beg your pardon?” What will?  
  
_“You heard me dickface! He’s been moved, so we won’t be needing your generous contributions anymore! Stick ‘em where the sun don’t shine!”_  
  
“Wait! What facility is he in?”  
  
_Click._  
  
Sendak stood in the thunderous quiet of his office feeling the solid ground of his belief in the way things were giving way beneath his feet.  
  
This simply would not stand.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever since hearing teen Coran's music in season two, I've thought he might be a guy who'd like Electric Light Orchestra.


	6. Vorticity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance meets his next-door neighbor. Sendak investigates the will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for the kudos, and thanks for the comments old_pens and ninjawolf160. To clear up the confusion: Voltron Defender of the Universe Lance is Voltron Legendary Defender Lance's stepfather in this AU. The lady on the phone was talking about DotU Lance, who is taking the role of the parent in a nursing home from the original movie plot. Sendak has no idea yet that VLD Lance is going by his stepdad's name.

 

Lance leaned back against the side of the house in the shade of the carport and lingered over his second cup of coffee of the day, prepared in the greca on the range in his clean kitchen. Well. Clean enough to start using. He wanted to give it an even more thorough cleaning and eventually a repainting, but that could wait until he’d given the rest of the house a first clean and gotten a start on the yard. Coran would surely want to see progress, but he hadn’t given him any kind of a deadline. There was time. Lance smiled over the rim of a stoneware mug with sunflowers painted under the glaze. He’d stored the remaining coffee grounds inside the matching beanpot, which should make do until he could get something better suited for preserving coffee beans.  
  
For now, he’d just enjoy watching the neighborhood tranquilly begin the day. Cars rumbled down the lane in orderly rows with intermittent flashes of brake lights. A yellow school bus rolled to a stop and collected backpack-toting children. Somebody’s dog with a small camera attached to its collar ran through front yards and around the next-door neighbor’s side yard, tongue out in pure doggy joy.  
  
His next-door neighbor’s house, also a ranch but one with an enclosed two-car garage, had vertical siding painted mesa rose, making a pretty contrast to the yellow bell shrubs veiling the front walk in relative privacy. He wondered who lived there. Maybe it was a newlywed couple’s starter home? But that thought made his stomach clench in unwelcome disquiet.  
  
Or maybe that was just hunger. He had three sandwiches worth of bread left, along with some guava jelly, coffee and still a ridiculous number of granola bars. He’d have to scope out a new grocery store to do his shopping very soon, sometime after he’d gotten over the stunning novelty of being alone in a house that he was meant to live in without a keeper.    
  
He also needed to stop thinking about married people. Maybe it was a college coed’s house, gifted by parents who didn’t want them living on campus?  
  
That just made him think about his lost scholarship.  
  
 ♬ “I got chills! They’re multiplyin’!” ♬  
  
The mildness of the morning suddenly gave way for a bright-haired man dancing out from behind the privacy hedge next door.  
  
♬  “And I’m losin’ contro-wol!”  ♬  
  
He was carrying a rake, probably to gather up the samaras under the massive velvet ash tree in his front yard. At least, that was the direction his hips seemed to be shaking in.  
  
♬  “‘Cause the power you’re supplyin’!”  ♬  
  
He had a big voice for such a slim dude, a spinto tenor as vibrant as his chestnut hair.  
  
 ♬ “It’s electrifyin’!”  ♬  
  
He leaped into a spread eagle and landed on his knees, bending backwards and playing a wild air guitar solo on the rake. Was it still air guitar if you used a prop? Lance gave him extra points for singing the bass transition out loud.  
  
 ♬ “You better shape up-”  ♬  
  
Then he bounced upright on his knees, looked straight over at Lance and froze.  
  
Lance waved stiffly, the type of wave you gave to somebody who’d danced like there was nobody watching and then found out someone was watching. Then he ducked back in the side door and sat down on the clean kitchen floor, laughing behind his hand until tears streamed down his face. He hadn't realized how much he needed that.  
  
Mamá and Dad used to dance all over their cramped house to that song. Mamá knew all the words, and Dad knew all the dance moves, so somewhere after the second chorus they’d always wind up improvising and trying to crack each other up.  
  
Lance was glad he’d left the house in trust to Dad. The place in Hialeah was rented out using a property manager recommended by Mamá and Dad’s old friend Sven, which Lance had begged for and Sadak had acquiesced to only after he saw what a nice little bump it would give to their monthly income. Lance had seethed at having to beg for something that was technically already his, so he’d asked Sven to help him draw up a will and keep it quiet. Sven had been uncomfortable with the request, but he’d gotten it done. Lance knew there was no way he ever dared return to the little house with the sun deck roof, but that didn’t mean that someday Dad couldn’t go home.  
  
Still smiling, Lance went to work on the whimsical bathroom, where he found out the grout between the floor tiles was indeed supposed to be grey, but the grout between the wall tiles was not, nor the wall tiles themselves. Underneath the soap scum they were a talavera-inspired shade of turquoise, a distinctly eighties tint that was more neon than the pastel turquoise of the bathroom fixtures, which were probably from an earlier decade. Dad had owned clothes in this shade of neon turquoise, wearing them fancy-free in the twenty-first century and putting up with the Miami Vice jokes from his stepson with his usual impish humor.  
  
He missed Dad. Hopefully he would be able to remedy that soon. He hummed songs from one of Dad’s old albums as he continued to uncover brilliant ceramic from beneath soapy film.  
  
♬  “… just like that river twisting through a dusty land, and when she shines she really shows you all she can…”  ♬  
  
He sang while he worked, until nature called in the most convenient place possible. He was going to have to get a bidet attachment or sprayer for that toilet at some point, but that could also wait.  
  
♬  “Oh Rio, Rio, hear them shout across the land …” ♬  
  
He flushed the toilet and nearly jumped out of his skin when it moaned at him.  
  
“What the crap?!”  
  
He was standing back flat against cleaned tiles with his hands out to protect him from what, toilet ghosts? When it dawned on him what he was dealing with.  
  
“'ño.”  
  
He had to find a hardware store.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Tell me again what it is that you need?” The redheaded alpha kid leaned across the Help Desk counter on one elbow, grinning. His pheromones smelled like a stink tree. Or at least, Lance hoped he was just smelling pheromones.  
  
“I need a float valve,” Lance said through gritted teeth.  
  
“Are you sure that’s what it’s called?” The kid’s name tag said ‘Dudley,’ which was the same name as the franchisee on this hardware store’s sign. That, paired with the sheer level of shameless obnoxiousness on display strongly suggested this was the franchise owner’s kid. “I’m just trying to be helpful,” the kid said, paraphrasing the chain’s jingle.  
  
Sure. Lance knew what he was getting at. The part he needed was also known as a ballcock, but he’d rather go home and exorcise the toilet than to give this pendejo the prurient satisfaction he was obviously after.  
  
“This what you needed?”  
  
Lance turned and found himself gazing into the friendly hazel eyes of his dancing neighbor. Long chestnut bangs tumbled around a complexion as fair and supple as an apple blossom, with a hypertrophic scar high on his left cheekbone and a warm smile dimpling his cheeks. He smelled like petrichor after the rain.  
  
When molecular physicists had begun to unravel human pheromones, they’d discovered that dynamic scents were not identical to the scents they emulated at the biomolecular level. Theoretically what was happening was that the human olfactory system interpreted the pheromones in ways that would subconsciously signal whether another human was a potential friend or foe, or mate. This explained why sometimes the same individual’s base scent could smell quite differently to two other people.  
  
Lance’s neighbor smelled like the promise of spring, even though it was almost autumn.  
  
“Um.” Lance looked at the package being held forth for his inspection. It was the part he was looking for. “Yes. Thank you.”  
  
“Matt.” The dancing neighbor, now named Matt, set his bag of compost starter down by his feet and held out his other hand in greeting. “My name’s Matt Holt.”  
      
“Matt.” Lance accepted the part with one hand and shook with the other. “Hi. Nice voice you got there.” Nice aroma too.  
  
Matt laughed sheepishly. “Thanks! Yours is good too. Untrained, but the raw material is definitely there.”  
  
“You heard me singing?”  
  
Matt blushed endearingly across the tops of his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, you uh, your voice kind of carried out the window.”  
  
“So, you’re a pro, huh?” Lance was very aware he should be getting on with it, but this beta’s refreshing scent made him want to linger. Good neighbors made good fences, right?  
  
“You could say that. I teach musical theater at the community college.”  
  
“Oh my god, are you gonna buy anything or what?”  
  
Lance had nearly managed to forget that Dudley was there, Matt Holt had so thoroughly grabbed his attention. He mentally kicked himself. He could not afford to be so heedless of his surroundings.  
  
“I’ve got to…” He lifted the float valve in explanation.  
  
“Yeah…” Matt picked up his bag of compost starter. “Hey, listen there’s a food truck thing tonight near the neighborhood if you want to walk over together?”  
  
“I, uh…” This was venturing into potentially dangerous territory. It was one thing to make nice with the neighbor. It was another thing altogether to get close to the neighbor, and dating was on a whole other level of no bueno.  
  
“I’ve put you on the spot.” Matt backed up a step, one hand up in a conciliatory gesture. “I apologize. I’ll just leave my house at six thirty, and if you want to walk over together you can leave your house at six thirty too. No pressure.” He had a really nice smile, his large round eyes crinkled up at the corners.  
  
_Oh no, he’s cute_.  
  
“See you around neighbor.” Matt winked and walked toward the checkout at the front of the store.  
  
Lance watched him go. His stomach growled in anticipation.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
The bed frame lay on its side like an overturned casket, with the mattress and slipcover heaved against the wall. Sendak had been through every drawer, every closet, and now under the bed, and had found no sign of the will that wretched woman had mentioned, or of anything to hint that Laurel had known of his stepfather’s awakening before he’d died.  
  
He had been looking forward to finally selling that property. No more beady-eyed estate lawyer looking over his shoulder to make sure he was taking proper care of it, just wash his hands clean of it and get a nice sum in return, and he knew just the buyer. Now all of his plans were disrupted, because his omega had lied to him? Such a thing was unthinkable. There had to be another explanation.  
  
He knew he should have left it to his research team to dig up this so-called will, but such a terrible feeling had overtaken him, and he’d been unable to control his reaction to it. Honerva had taken one whiff of his scent and given him leave to take a long weekend to regain his composure. He’d immediately booked the first available flight to Cape Cod, rented a car and come straight to the beach house.  
  
So far, he’d found nothing of his Laurel but beautiful clothes wrapped in cedar and plastic, and the cosmetics which had graced his face and hair, which remained where they’d been the last time Laurel had used them as he’d instructed the maid service. Laurel’s scent on them had faded to spectral. Even the mattress only smelled of Sendak now, and it had not even been two full weeks since they’d last coupled upon it.  
  
Frustrated, he punched the tufted headboard and was instantly reminded that underneath the thin layer of batting and foam was a thick board of solid wood. His hand promptly registered the pain of impact. Dumbfounded, he held his swelling fingers in front of his face. Two of the knuckles were abraded and beginning to bleed freely.  
  
He stumbled from one bathroom to the next dribbling blood on the floor, looking for a towel to wrap his hand. Who had packed up all the hand towels in this house? He would find out which maid had done it and make sure that thoughtless fool never cleaned on Cape Cod again.  
  
Finally, in the downstairs guest bath he found hand towels, folded and arranged neatly so the embroidery faced out and the tags were hidden. He clutched one up to swathe his hand and nearly dropped it when Laurel’s soothing scent wafted up from it.  
  
He brought it to his nose and inhaled. Laurel. He’d used this towel, and it had not been washed or aired out afterward. He ran his nose over the ringspun cotton, sniffing. The scent seemed to be concentrated in one spot. He pulled back to view it and found two half-circle indents faintly impressed in the fabric.  
  
Teeth marks.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“It’s not a date.”  
  
Lance had fixed the toilet, so it had nothing to say to his assertion. He turned in the two-tone turquoise shower to rinse the shampoo out of his hair. If he was going to keep showering in hard water, then he was going to need to start using a vinegar rinse, because the strands were getting more difficult to detangle.  
  
“It’s just for food, and that’s all.”  
  
Except he no longer had a pressing need for food. There had been a grocery store in the same shopping center that the hardware store anchored, so after he’d finished buying the things he’d needed to make the bathroom functional he’d gone there and gotten enough sandwich ingredients to tide him over for a little while.  
  
“It would be nice to talk to someone about fun things again.”  
  
( _“Talking and eating? That’s a date, kid.”_ ) That had been Dad’s opinion when he’d asked for permission to go get pizza with Cliff Jackson on a school night. He’d told Mamá and Dad that he and Cliff were just friends going to hang out, and that they were the ones who taught him to be gracious to new arrivals in town so that’s what he was doing.  
  
They’d wound up dating.  
  
“It’s not a date!”  
  
Lance decided to dress down for his not-date. Not that dressing up was really an option, but he went for the most basic selections in his thrift and discount store wardrobe. He paired the hoodie (still necessary but probably not for much longer) with straight leg jeans, a plain t-shirt and the new (but plain!) off-brand sneakers. You can’t get the wrong idea from jeans and a t-shirt, right?  
  
He stepped out into the carport to find the gathering gloam had painted the outdoors in warm dusky colors like candlelight. Evening primrose perfumed the air from someone’s garden down the street. Matt stood by his mailbox wearing jeans and a plain t-shirt, and a light green hoodie. He grinned when he caught sight of Lance.  
  
“I guess we match,” he said as Lance drew near.  
  
Lance laughed and scratched the side of his neck where a band-aid had replaced the gauze dressing. “I guess so.”  
  
Matt turned and began to amble with a purpose. He clearly knew where he was going, which was good because Lance had no clue. They were a block from their houses when Matt turned back to Lance and said, “You know, you never told me your name.”  
  
And he never would, not really. He felt the truth in his chest like a lodestone. “Lance,” he said. “I’m Lance McClain.”  
  
“Lance,” Matt murmured, as if to test how he liked the feel of it in his mouth. “What brings you to the neighborhood, Lance McClain?”  
  
“Coran Hieronymous Wimbleton Smythe,” Lance said, watching Matt sidelong to gauge his reaction. Did he make a habit of knowing who his neighbors were, or was Lance a special case?  
  
Matt smiled at his walking feet. “He’s finally going to fix the place up, huh?”  
  
“Yes.” Relief and disappointment mingled like bitters in whiskey. “He brought me on as the caretaker until he decides what he wants to do with it.”  
  
“What about you?” Matt looked back up, eyes owlishly clear in the golden light of fading sun and brightening street lamps. “Are you planning on sticking around or are you just here to fix up the Balmer house and move on?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Lance admitted. He looked around at the gossamer shadows cast by trees and houses, and other people walking in the same direction they were. “I think I’d like to stay a while though.”  
  
They walked together in charged silence.  
  
“How’d you meet Coran?” Matt finally asked, and now Lance got the sense that his answer was going to be evaluated according to a rubric to which he wasn’t privy.  
  
“I was a juror at one of his mock trials,” Lance replied.  
  
Matt chuckled. “How’d he rope you into this? He wasn’t trying to set you up with Allura, was he?”  
  
“He kept asking me about Keith Aguirre?” Lance still wasn’t entirely sure what that was about.  
  
Matt smiled with a quizzical squint. “I thought Keith wasn’t into omegas?”  
  
“I don’t think he is either,” Lance said, shrugging.  
  
Lance supposed he shouldn’t be surprised at this point at who already knew each other. He knew from living near Miami and Boston that large metropolitan areas tended to have communities within communities, and a lot of them were interconnected, like stitches in a patchwork quilt. Especially the academic communities. Mamá had published journal papers every so often. Lance got used to having strangers with initials behind their names come up to him and try to draw him into conversations about her work.  
  
“You sound like you know Coran a little better than just as an absentee neighbor,” he said.  
  
It was Matt’s turn to shrug. “He introduced himself when he came over to view the house, and before I knew it he was sending me students from his trial law classes for tutoring. Monologue delivery and engaging the audience are skills I can help them with, and the tutoring fees are a nice bonus for me. I’m still not sure how I got from ‘nice to meet you’ to training his students on dramatic techniques, but I didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, you know?”  
  
Lance smiled at the knowledge that he wasn’t the only person Coran had pursued with his cheerful brand of enlightened self-interest. He had a sunny disposition that could be perceived as archetypally beta prime. Lots of consciousness-raising activism had occurred in recent years denouncing stereotypical beta prime depictions like Pollyanna and Gomer Pyle for oversimplifying their traits and only viewing them in the light of their perceived ability to make other dynamics feel good about themselves.  
  
Personally, Lance thought Coran’s knack for persuading other people to share in his joie de vivre was all him. He knew dynamic was not a good barometer for a person’s actual character. If it was, he wouldn’t have had to run from his husband. A stereotypical alpha prime was supposedly the ultimate protector. They were always cast as the heroes in action movies, never the villains.  
  
“What do you like to eat?” Matt asked. They were nearing the commons where the food trucks were parked end to end, their concession windows open in cordial invitation.  
  
“If there’s garlic in it, I’m all over it.” Lance had never been a particularly picky eater and had learned to become less so in recent years, but if there was one flavor he missed it was garlic. Sadak hadn’t much of a taste for it, so he hadn’t been able to cook with it often.  
  
Matt quirked a grin. “Let’s go find us some vampire repellent.”  
  
They walked around under fairy lights like low hanging stars, enjoying the food smells and the general air of anticipation around them. Their shoulders brushed occasionally in the press of people, warm like a geothermal spring.  
  
Lance spotted a truck selling mixto sandwiches, and they got in line. Matt didn’t bat an eye when Lance suggested they go halfsies. They took their bounty to the picnic tables where they squeezed in together hip to thigh. But it was okay because there were about seven other people crowded around the same table. Eight if you counted the toddler sitting on top of the table.  
  
“Is it authentic?” Matt’s breath was reassuringly fragrant of garlic and herbs, just like Lance’s.  
  
“The bread is wrong,” Lance said before he realized what he’d just revealed. Oh well, Keith would have probably confirmed it for him anyway the next time they talked to each other. “It’s good, though,” he added as he met Matt’s eyes, which were alight with curiosity.  
  
It was good, as a matter of fact. It might have been made with a crustier cousin of pan Cubano, and carnitas instead of mojo pork, but it still came together into something that made Lance feel cozy with reminiscence. He was getting a solid dose of the garlic he’d hoped for.  
  
“Good.” Matt beamed, happy that Lance was enjoying himself and expecting nothing more.  
  
Lance’s heart did a little flip. Oh shit, Dad was right, he was always right. It didn’t have to be a date, but it sure felt like the start of something. How the hell was he supposed to keep out of dangerous waters when some pernicious part of him kept trying to dive right in?  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Sven Holgersson kept offices in a Mediterranean Revival building on Las Olas Boulevard, a street locally celebrated for being less tacky than other commercial districts in South Florida. Holgersson himself opened the door to let Sendak into his office vestibule. These were not his typical business hours, yet he was dressed in his customary Nehru collar jacket, his only concession to the tropical humidity in the city where he’d opened his practice.  
  
Holgersson must have allowed his secretary to keep her day off. The estate lawyer was the most stoically mannered alpha Sendak had ever come across. Perhaps that imperturbable temperament suited him, working primarily with the elderly and infirm as he did.  
  
“Romelle and I were very sorry to hear of the death of Lorenzo,” he said in his Swedish accent, still unaccountably thick after living and working in Fort Lauderdale for well over a decade. “I suppose you are here about the will?” He was also still as blunt as ever.  
  
Sendak remembered meeting the man at his whirlwind wedding reception at the Four Seasons in Boston. Holgersson had expressed frank bewilderment at the suddenness of their union, completely unconcerned with the fact that he was expressing this sentiment to the groom.  
  
“I appreciate your condolences.” When was this oaf going to offer him a chair? “It was so sudden, so shocking, and then to find out that his stepfather had awakened and I was never informed-”  
  
“You were going to sell Lance’s kidneys to a hedge fund tycoon,” Holgersson interrupted. His white oak scent shifted away from vanilla toward earth.  
  
Never be worth more dead than alive were words to live by, a platinum rule that Lance Charles McClain had broken. “It was regrettable, but I-”  
  
“I thought Lorenzo was wrong, to make this will and to keep it from you, his alpha.” Holgersson’s eyes hardened like chromium. “But it was I who was wrong. If I had only invited him to confide in me,” his fists clenched at his sides, “but I did not, and that is my own cross to bear.”  
  
 “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Sendak allowed a tendril of his own scent to uncurl between them, a warning.  
  
“Then let me clarify it for you.” Holgersson did not react to the musk sent in his direction. “Lorenzo left his property to Lance in a supplemental needs trust which cannot be revoked by anyone but the trustee, and I assure you, the trustee will not agree to alter the terms.”  
  
“ **And who is the trustee?** ” Sendak allowed a hint of command to roll into his speech. It sometimes worked on other alphas, if the personality it was directed at was inclined to fold.  
  
Holgersson remained stone faced. “I’m sure you’re perfectly capable of finding that information yourself.”  
  
“I’m sure that I am.” Sendak wanted to punch. It took all his social training to refrain. “Good day, Mr. Holgersson.”  
  
He swept out the door. Later, he could punch.  
  
When he’d found Laurel.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ño - Shortened form of a swear that is used in Caribbean Spanish where an English speaker would say 'damn.'
> 
> pendejo - A derogatory term for an unpleasant person, with different connotations depending on the dialect, but usually synonymous with 'dumbass.'


	7. Fluid Dynamics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance's long anestrus ends, he has a conversation with his trustee, and he receives unorthodox help from unexpected quarters. 
> 
> Sendak enlists some help of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the kudos, and thank you so much for the insightful comment demonsLOver!

 

The first inkling Lance had that something was out of kilter was when he found the cut branches from the apple tree stacked in the side yard and instead of dragging them to the curb to be recycled, he dragged them all inside the house. He piled them all into his bedroom and began lining them up next to the bed frame one by one, checking lengths.  
  
He had a crystal-clear idea of what he wanted to do with these pruned apple tree branches. He wanted to make a canopy for his bed. The branches could be hung from the ceiling with twine and he could get some sheets or curtains to hang from the branches to veil his bed from prying eyes. The cloth would hold his scent close around him, adding to the feeling of sanctuary. He was very pleased with this idea. There were just a couple of problems.  
  
Problem the first: he didn’t yet have any sheets or curtains to suit this purpose. He supposed he could wash the dusty curtains from the living room and spare room to use for the bed canopy, but that felt like an icky thing to do and he wasn’t entirely sure why. This was a problem that could be easily overcome by finding a store nearby with affordable housewares, but then there was the second problem: the walls were still a glut of busy flowers. He had cleaned the bedroom top to bottom in preparation to paint over those walls. He had not gotten to the actual painting part yet. Why was he thinking about hanging branches from the ceiling when he hadn’t even painted the walls yet?  
  
The truth of it hit him like lightning. “You've gotta be kidding me!”  
  
This was his nesting instinct at work, and while it was not in overdrive it was headed in that direction. That meant a heat would be coming on soon, and if the intensity of his desire to make a bed canopy was any indication, it was not going straight to the diestrus phase like some omegas experienced when they were coming off a dry spell. He was going to have to drop everything to lay in supplies and prepare to be indisposed. He hoped it would be his normal four-day estrus. He’d heard of omegas having two-week heats in unusual circumstances.  
  
“I miss suppressants,” he sighed, slumping and letting a branch dangle from lax hands. He’d been on them through most of his high school and college years. Sadak hadn’t let him take any after the honeymoon, but they had turned out to be unnecessary with him anyway.  
  
Lance sniffed his pits to check for hormonal shift in his sweat glands. He didn’t think he smelled ripe yet, but he was never the best judge when he was this close to a heat. Asking for a second opinion was out of the question, under the circumstances. The circumstances being that the nearest friendly person to ask was Matt, and Matt got more attractive with every passing day. They hadn’t gone on another outing since the evening of mixtos and epiphanies, but they had been chatting over the backyard fence daily while Lance added layers to his sheet mulching project and Matt sprinkled water in his compost bin. Their friendship was still sparkly and new. Lance didn’t want to mess it up with any flirting, accidental or otherwise.  
  
It was a myth that an omega in heat would jump on any available dick in the immediate vicinity. Going into estrus didn’t make an omega forget their preferences. It just lowered inhibitions, so that, just for example, the handsome neighbor who was off limits for Reasons might suddenly seem like a perfectly reasonable heat partner to proposition.  
  
Lance checked out the food situation in the fridge and pantry. He’d been on another grocery run and had enough of the basic food groups covered that he was sure he could hold out for the week if he had to. He also still had a bunch of granola bars in his duffel, which was in the pullout drawer on his bed frame, convenient for when the lethargy hit and he wouldn’t want to move around much. He had access to plenty of water.  
  
What he really needed was more towels, some proper bedding, and that bidet he’d been putting off buying. Heats were messy and uncomfortable times. His pizza towel and ultra light sleeping bag just weren’t going to cut it for this.  
  
Lance got out his phone and opened the browser. He was going to have to spend some prepaid data. Reconnaissance was essential. If he went out on a fruitless search only to have some weirdo follow him home… there! A super center was a bus ride away, and he knew this chain would take his PayPal online for an in-store pickup order with no fuss because he’d done it before to stock his go-bags. It occurred to him that maybe the extent to which he had stocked the go-bags had actually been his thwarted nesting instinct latching onto a substitute outlet.  
  
This super center location didn’t have a whole lot of variety in stocked items, but at least they had the types of items he needed. This was not the time for Lance to get picky about the decorating, but he couldn’t seem to help it with his nesting instinct gathering steam. He was going to have to balance what he wanted with what he needed, and then temper that with what he could carry in a single trip. He didn’t want to go wafting his preheat smell around town for any longer than he had to.  
  
He found a handheld bidet, something with ‘spa’ in the name like it wasn’t a glorified side sprayer. Whatever, it would do the job and it was lighter and cheaper than a seat attachment. He reserved a comforter set covered in teal roses, two sets of microfiber sheets, bath towels, some voile curtain panels, and a waterproof mattress pad. He didn’t have a mattress to put the pad on yet, but it would make the comforter and his sleeping bag a little softer while protecting the absorbent fabrics from his slick.  
  
Speaking of waterproof fabrics, though. Lance added some extra fabric to his cart. He was going to turn that life vest into a damn throw pillow, hopefully before his heat became too distracting. He already had a small sewing kit in his duffel. He added a pack of heavy duty S hooks to his online shopping cart. Those would make it easier to hang the branches from the ceiling than nails and twine alone. Oh, yes. That bed canopy was still going up, so help him.  
  
Lance hesitated and then added a jar of recovery shake powder to his cart, of a brand marketed heavily to omegas in a series of cheesy commercials featuring winking models covered in sweat. ( _Did she work out, or is it heat? Either way she’s covered with Recovery Sweet!_ ) His appetite tended to fluctuate wildly near the end of his cycle. If he just remembered to mix one shake a day, he should be able to weather even an atypical heat. The cashier would probably speculate about his business seeing that on top of the other items, but it would be worth it to have it on hand.  
  
He was going to have to carry all this stuff home with him, too. It wasn’t terribly heavy, but it was bulky. He would annoy his fellow passengers on the bus for sure. Maybe he should use a ride service app for the return trip and run the risk that the driver might try knocking on his door later.  
  
Then he thought of something else and smiled for the first time since he realized a heat was coming. He checked to see if this store had what he wanted in stock. Yes, they did. He considered a moment. It was a reasonable price and a worthwhile investment, and thanks to Dorma he had the funds available for it. He added the bicycle to his cart, along with a handlebar basket and a pannier, and finished his checkout.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance tucked his new reloadable prepaid Visa into his wallet as he sat waiting in the customer service area for the bicycle assembly to be finished. The fees made him wince, but the card would help him access his PayPal account more easily and save him from always having to worry about where to hide large amounts of cash on his person when he went on shopping errands.  
  
He had gotten some funny looks on the bus and here in the store, but nobody had said anything to him and he wasn’t getting any weird vibes, just barefaced curiosity from a few people. He must not smell much stronger than usual yet. He felt relatively anonymous, and comfortable enough on the vinyl padded bench to load more data time onto his phone with a fresh top-up card. Then, before he could change his mind, he dialed his trustee’s work mobile.  
  
_“Garden Grove Rehab,”_ said a very familiar voice.  
  
“Don’t talk,” Lance said, and heard a hiss on the other end of the line.  
  
_“Lore-”_  
  
“Don’t,” Lance repeated, cupping his free hand over his mouth. “Go somewhere more private if you need to, but don’t say my name.”  
  
He heard stumbling, fumbling, and a door closing. Then, _“What the fuck, everybody thinks you’re dead.”_  
  
“And it’s better if they keep on thinking that.”  
  
_“What the fuck Lorenz-”_  
  
“He was beating the shit out of me, Shiro.”  
  
There was a beat of silence. _“We could have helped you.”_  
  
“Not with this.” His breath was harsh in the receiver. “Not with him.”  
  
_“If you’d just told me-”_  
  
“He would have turned your life upside down just to keep me.” That was the plain hard truth of it. It was within Sadak’s means and character to figure out a way to do it, and the fact that Shiro had little left to lose only made the thought of him losing what was left more poignant.  
  
Shiro sighed heavily on the other end of the line. _“What are you going to do?”_  
  
“Stay dead,” Lance replied, “but I don’t want Dad to think I’m dead.”  
  
_“That might take some convincing,”_ Shiro said. _“One of the candy stripers offered her condolences before I got the chance to talk to him.”_  
  
That just about ripped Lance’s heart out. Dad understood what people were saying to him, but he was still having trouble responding. To have some near-stranger tell him that the child he raised and who was all that was left of his beloved wife was dead when he couldn’t question her… Lance clenched his teeth against the onslaught of emotions trying to claw past. Why had he decided to call here and now? Fucking hormones. He had wanted to do it, so it was happening, and now he had to try to act normal.  
  
“I’m going to come out and see him.”  
  
_“How? Everybody here knows what you look like. Lance has pictures up for fuck’s sake.”_  
  
“I don’t know yet.” Lance swiped at his eyes. “Maybe a disguise? I have a wig.”  
  
_“It had better be the best wig in the universe or you’ll be made.”_  
  
“I’ll think of something.”  
  
_“I’ve got to go. You better call me later.”_  
  
“Okay.”  
  
Lance tried to will the salt water back into his eyes as he waited for his Dad’s name to be called. He wanted to go home.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“I’ve got him.”  
  
Sendak looked up from his computer monitor as Haxus barged into his office with a printout in hand. Any other beta he would have had trembling on their knees for entering without first asking permission, but Haxus’s singular talents kept him useful enough to permit some latitude. Sendak preferred not to ever find out if Haxus could hack into any of his accounts. He still had no idea how the man formerly known as Enos Hicks had legally changed his name to Haxus in the first place. As far as he could discover, no court had granted him the privilege and yet every government entity acknowledged it.  
      
“Do go on,” he said, as Haxus stood there quivering with self-congratulatory glee.  
  
“They’re using a Certificate of Trust to transfer the property back to the stepfather but get this.” Haxus thrust the paper, which was a copy of a recently filed quitclaim deed form, under his nose. “They’re putting the trustee’s name on the deed!”  
  
This information was not done wending its way through probate court, or Sendak would have found it already. “Good job, Haxus.” Of course, the trustee himself was required to contact Sendak within sixty days of the date on Laurel’s death certificate, but Sendak did not want to wait sixty days.  
  
Sixty days to lay hands on his own omega again. Preposterous.  
  
“I also found out where the trustee lives. Got a copy of his driver’s license, if you want I’ll ping it to you.”  
  
Haxus was a miracle worker.  
  
“Remind me to approve a nice fat bonus on your next paycheck Haxus.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance rocked up into his hand, palming down to flick his balls and up to caress the tip. Down and up.  
  
“Oh fuck.”  
  
Another gush of fluid erupted from his cocklet to join the growing mess on the brand-new sheets. He hadn’t done this in so long, his refractory period was basically nil. He’d be ready to go again in moments.  
  
It had been pleasurable at first rediscovering this part of himself, but the bloom had come off that rose after the thirteenth ejaculation. No amount of penile-stimulated orgasms could offer anything more than temporary relief during a heat, he knew that. The only way to bring this seemingly endless cycle of horniness to a halt was for Lance to pop an egg or just wait for the estrus period to be over in its own sweet time.  
  
So, he could have another two days of lying around sweaty, naked, covered in his own juices and with a raging hard-on that refused to stay down, and then expect to go into heat again within a month and a half. Or he could do what many an unsuppressed omega did in this situation and use a toy to fool his body into releasing an egg, so he could ride out the rest of his heat in much less discomfort and not have to worry about it again for three months.  
  
Lance was, like all male omegas and female alphas, strictly an induced ovulator. Like female omegas, male omegas went through an estrous cycle. Female alphas had delayed implantation instead of an estrous or menstrual cycle to prepare the womb for a pregnancy. Lance’s heat meant his body was already prepared to host a fertilized egg, but without a promise of incoming sperm, the necessary surge of lutenising hormone to release the egg from its ovotestis would not occur. After standing ready for as long as it could, his reproductive system would simply reabsorb the uterine lining and save that egg for another day. In the meantime, he was hard again.  
  
“Fucking… fuck.”  
  
It was not precisely true that a knot was required to induce ovulation in an omega. It was just the most reliable stimulatory method. A beta male with a compatible scent was perfectly capable of – nope. Not doing that, ixnay on the eighbornay, _get ahold of yourself Lance_.  
  
He reached down between his legs for more slick and wondered how long he could continuously jack off before he started to feel the effects of dehydration. He had a bottle of water on the nightstand beside him, but he had discovered that it was not easy to juggle the water bottle and his erection at the same time. He had no toys in his possession. He’d never owned any, never having needed them before, first due to being on suppressants, then due to being married to an asshole.  
  
There was a knobbly carrot in the crisper in the fridge. He had been planning to make soup with that carrot, but needs must, and he had a need. The soup could go carrotless. Lance raised himself off the pallet he’d made on the bed frame and slipped out of the voile canopy he’d erected in a tizzy of nest building when he’d gotten home with the materials.  
  
Nude and too far gone to give a crap about anyone catching a glimpse of him through any windows, Lance scurried into the kitchen and got the carrot out of the fridge. It was cold and dirty. He took it to the sink to clean it under warm running water.  
  
“Don’t defile your carrot.”  
  
Damn Keith and his low-projection scent. Lance whirled on him like a naked ninja.  
  
“Don’t you tell me what to do with my carrot.” Lance shook the carrot at him. “What are you doing here?”  
  
“Saving your carrot’s virtue, apparently.” He had come in through the door by the pantry, using a key that he could have only gotten from one person. He moved further into the room and Lance could finally smell the irritation coming off him like burnt marshmallows.  
  
Lance stood frustrated with his hands on his hips. Framing the issue, as it were. “Coran sent you to check up on me?”  
  
“Matt got worried when you didn’t come out of the house for two days and wouldn’t answer the door, and called Coran, and Coran called me.”  
  
“So yes, is what you’re saying.”  
  
“Okay, fine, yes, will you put that thing away?”  
  
Lance stomped to the fridge to put the carrot back in the crisper.  
  
“I meant your dick!”  
  
Lance stomped to the bedroom to get pants.  
  
“I think he needs a heat aid,” he overheard when he came back out. “I caught him getting ready to go to town on a vegetable.” Keith stood looking out the kitchen window with a cell phone to his ear. “Yeah, okay. No, I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Right. See you soon.”  
  
“You got me all sorted out?” Lance felt childishly justified when Keith jumped about a foot in the air.  
  
“You dadgum-” Keith literally shook himself. “Coran is coming over with something to help you out.”  
  
“Okay.” Lance turned and washed his hands at the sink, chin tucked down so that Keith wouldn’t see him trying not to laugh. Later, when his nerves didn't feel scraped like the rescued carrot was going to be, he’d have to remember to ask Keith if he was the rootinest, tootinest, shootinest hombre in the West. “I’m going to make some coffee.”  
  
“I can do that if you tell me where you store everything.”  
  
“Dude.” Lance got the coffee out of the beanpot and the greca out of the cabinets. “I am in heat. I am not an invalid.” Just because his sweatpants were tented, and his crotch growing damper by the second didn’t mean he was about to faint like an omega from an old movie.  
  
“You actually do seem pretty calm for someone who’s in heat.”  
  
Lance flicked a glance over his shoulder as he poured water into the greca’s reservoir. “You seem pretty calm for an alpha around someone in heat.”  
  
Keith folded his arms and scowled at the wall. “I’m an alpha, not an animal.”  
  
“Point taken.” Lance started spooning out the coffee grounds. “Just because I’m excruciatingly uncomfortable right now doesn’t mean I can’t control myself too.”  
  
“I’ve only ever seen someone in heat in a porno,” Keith admitted. “I guess that’s not an accurate depiction?”  
  
Lance laughed out loud. “No, not really.”  
  
This was the weirdly reassuring thing he’d learned about Keith in the very short time he’d known him: his tendency to just say whatever was on his ever-loving mind, regardless of who his audience was. Something about Keith’s secure presence at his back also reminded Lance of syncing heats with the other omegas in his dorm at St. Julian’s, despite the alpha-in-charge posture Keith put forth. Lance was reasonably sure that if Matt were in his kitchen right now he would be anything but calm.  
  
“So, Matt noticed when I didn’t come out of the house?”  
  
“Yes, and I already told Coran to tell him to stay home, so you can get that thought right out of your head.”  
  
Lance glowered. Stupid self-appointed heat guardian Keith.  
  
The homey aroma of fresh brewed coffee mingled with Keith’s hearth fire scent and Lance’s nectar-sweet heat scent by the time Coran showed up with a bag full of dicks.  
      
“You’ve got this kitchen looking ship shape in almost no time at all, I’m right proud of you!” Coran nonchalantly began laying out assorted dildos on the kitchen table while Keith looked on with a creased forehead and a slightly open mouth.  
  
“Thanks Coran.” Lance got out the sunflower mugs. “Do you take sugar or milk in your coffee?”  
  
“A short black will do me fine, thanks lad.”  
  
Lance wasn’t sure what that was, so he erred on the side of a partially filled mug of undiluted black coffee.  
  
Coran seemed happy with that, so it must have been close enough. “Cheers!”  
  
“How about you, Keith?”  
  
“Me?” Keith looked up from gawking at silicone dicks.  
  
“Milk or sugar?”  
  
Keith stared blankly.  
  
“In your coffee?”  
  
“Um.” Keith blinked. “Can you put a lot of sugar?”  
  
“Naturally.” Didn’t he just watch Lance whip espumita before Coran came in?  
  
“Okay.” Keith still looked doubtful.  
  
Alright, Negative Nancy. Lance decided to fix Keith the same thing he was having. Nobody could ever accuse a cafecito of not being sweet enough. He watched as Keith took his first sip and felt the power of double caffeine and sugar enter his bloodstream. Vindication tasted as sweet as the coffee.  
  
Moments later the three of them were sipping coffee and gazing down at an impressive selection of fake cocks. Lance wondered where Coran had gotten these in such a big hurry and then wondered if Keith was wondering the same thing, and then wondered if either of them were pondering the fact that one of these things was destined to go up Lance’s twat.  
  
Lance took another steadying drink of sugary coffee. He’d probably be embarrassed about this whole scenario after the heat wore off.  
      
“Health Services keeps an abundance of these on hand for heat emergencies at the dorms.” Coran might in fact be an actual mind reader. “I wasn’t sure what your preferences were, so I grabbed one of each. I’d leave them all with you, but I really ought to take the ones you won’t use back for the students.” He seemed to feel guilty about that, which just wouldn’t do.  
  
“It’s okay Coran, I understand,” Lance reassured him, giving the dildos his serious scrutiny.  
  
There were huge knots, medium sized knots, beta dicks of all sizes both cut and uncut, an alpha female cock that could extend and retract from a facsimile of a preputial sheath, even a cute omega cocklet in the mix. Lance knew what he would prefer in this instance, but to induce ovulation he had to accept one with a knot on it. A beta dildo couldn’t trick his hormones without the scent of a compatible beta to go with it.  
  
Then he saw one that looked suitable for his needs. “I want that one.” It was a double-ended dildo with a beta dick on one side and a modestly sized alpha dick on the other. He picked it up out of the pile and hefted it in the hand not cradling a cup of coffee.  
  
“You’re quite sure?” Coran’s sunshine scent had remained strong and steady through the entire encounter. If he was remotely uncomfortable about any of this, he was doing a remarkable job of hiding it. “You don’t have to rush on our account.”  
  
“I’m positive,” Lance said.  
  
They both glanced towards Keith, whose attention seemed to have been captured so thoroughly by the knotted dildos that he hadn’t reacted to their conversation at all.  
  
“Very well. We’ll leave you to it. Keith?”  
  
Keith didn’t look up until Coran started retrieving alpha dildos right from under his nose to put back in his bag. “We’re going?”  
  
“Yes, Keith.”  
  
Lance saw them to the door, where Keith finally came out of his alpha dong daydream to fix Lance with a solemn look.  
  
“I saw you naked,” Keith said.  
  
“I know.” Where was he going with this? “I was there too.”  
  
“I saw your bruises and scars.”  
  
Lance froze.  
  
“It’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay. But if you ever want to talk to someone about it… I’m shit at talking, but I’m pretty good at listening.”  
  
Straight-from-the-shoulder yet still oddly thoughtful seemed to be a Keith specialty. “Thanks Keith. I don’t know if I’m ever going to want to talk about it, but if that changes, I’ll look you up.”  
  
Keith nodded, satisfied with that answer. Lance noticed Coran standing just outside pretending not to listen. He kept his peace and they took their leave.  
  
Alone once more, Lance brought the heat aid back to the bedroom, shucked out of his sweatpants and t-shirt and slipped back into the nest. Despite the brief distraction, his erection had not waned, and the slick continued to stream from between his legs. He reached down and slipped his fingers inside the introitus tucked just behind his balls, fresh to his own exploring touch because of his unusually long anestrus phase.  
  
Male omega hymens didn’t start to perforate until presentation, and Lance’s presentation at age fifteen had been typical for his dynamic. Masturbation in a small house with parents who could hear like bats was a real challenge, as was finding places to make out with Cliff where Dad’s friends wouldn’t track them down. The tickle of his own finger pads rediscovering his most tender place for himself made him shiver, the flesh so much smoother than anywhere else on his body, so soft and wet.  
  
He took the beta side of the dildo and sank it in, using slow, shallow thrusts, a little deeper with each stroke, until he felt the bursting friction of fullness and withdrawal. He heard shuddering moans, realized they were coming from him, and then he was coming too, in long contractions that built to crescendo, over and over. To have complete control of it… it was breathtaking. He felt he would never get enough. He used the beta side of the dildo again, and again and again, until he fell back, a sweat-soaked and exhausted mess on the pallet.  
  
Now would be the ideal time to use the alpha side of the dildo and induce ovulation, while he was loose and relaxed. Lance swallowed. He had only ever taken a knot once. His wedding night. It had started off as romantically as he’d always hoped, in the hotel’s deluxe suite after the reception.  
  
( _“Let me worship your body, my omega, my only desire, my own.”_ )  
  
Lance and Cliff had fooled around a lot, despite Dad’s best efforts. At the ripe old age of nineteen he’d thought he’d known what foreplay was.  
  
He had no idea.  
  
Sadak had played his body like a violin, kissing places he’d never thought needed to be kissed, massaging muscles he hadn’t even known were there. When the time had come, he had been so perfectly filled, over and over, until he wasn’t sure where he ended and Sadak began. Sadak laid the first claiming bite on him then, adding to the oceanic feeling of oneness crashing between them like waves. Then the knot had begun to swell, and his body had clamped tight around it. The orgasm that resulted from this was transcendent. He remembered thinking, if this was married life let him never be divorced.  
  
As they both basked in the afterglow, Sadak began to realize that he could not separate from his bride. He’d started to tense up. Lance hadn’t understood what was wrong at first. He’d thought maybe his new husband was experiencing aftershocks, and he’d stroked his strong back soothingly, thinking _this is mine now_.  He was wrong on both counts. Sadak had not been soothed, and the conception that any part of his body could surrender to another had unnerved him so deeply it sent him over the edge.  
  
In his frenzy to get loose he had pummeled the omega under him, eyes rolling back in his head like a maddened bull. Lance remembered cowering in pure disbelief and then an ice bath of shock when he’d realized he was equally trapped with a panicked beast, and he could feel that panic too, reverberating between them through the fresh mark on a feedback loop of high terror. Then Sadak started trying to pull out in earnest. The pain had been blinding. He’d let out a scream bloodcurdling enough to test the integrity of the hotel suite’s soundproofing, and Sadak came back to himself a little. He stopped trying rip out Lance’s insides, lying stiff and immobile on top of his hysterical omega until the knot went down. Twenty minutes that felt like an eternity.  
  
Sadak had begged forgiveness and taken Lance to see Dr. Traylen immediately, which Lance mistook as concern for his well-being. It was only much later that he realized Sadak must have been petrified of what would happen to his vision of perfection if he were to ruin his omega by having a freak-out during a knot.  
  
Fortunately for them both, the injury was treated in time to prevent permanent damage. Omegas of both genders were necessarily resilient in the vaginal area; it was the uterine area where they tended to be less robust than a female beta. At the time Lance had been worried about his ability to bear pups, thinking of his mother’s fertility problems and how that had affected her. He wasn’t yet fully cognizant that his situation was not one he wanted to bring children into.  
  
Sadak spent the rest of the honeymoon attending on Lance like a hothouse flower. He’d convinced his omega that his conduct had been an anomaly born of inexperience and he would never do it again. He hadn’t done that particular thing again, but only because he’d never risked knotting again. That had been the beginning of a slowly escalating cycle of violent behavior followed by profuse apologies, until the apologies became just another excuse for Sadak to get something he wanted. Usually it was sex, ironically enough, but that too had degraded far from the romantic interlude which started that very first time.  
  
Lance stared at the prophylactic knot that could end the more acute symptoms of his heat. It was tempting just to ride out the next two days with the beta side of the dildo. It wasn’t as if he had anyplace pressing to be, since he had yet to figure out how he was going to visit Dad without being recognized. The only problem was, he’d have to face this choice again a lot sooner if he didn’t use the alpha side of the dildo now.  
  
A dull tap on glass raised gooseflesh on Lance’s body despite his elevated temperature. He had stayed indoors since the onset of his heat, mindful of the fact that his scent was designed to draw potential mates to his location, so he shouldn’t let it escape the house in case of passing creeps. But Keith and Coran had just had the door open. Had he remembered to lock that door behind them?  
  
The tap came again. It was the bedroom window that looked out on the side yard. “Lance.”  
  
It wasn’t a creep.  
  
Lance parted the voile hanging over the headboard, stood on the bed and looked out.  
  
Matt stood in the light of the half moon, hair ruffled, t-shirt rumpled. He looked like a Botticelli angel in blue jeans. Lance cranked open the casement window. The smell of rain rushed from the dry outdoors into the bedroom, like an oasis springing up in the desert.  
  
“I had to see… if you were okay…” Matt’s eyelashes fluttered as Lance’s scent reached him. A beta’s pheromone receptors did not have as low an odor detection threshold as the other dynamics, but they worked just fine and dandy at close range.  
  
Lance chirped, the sound rising out of his diaphragm as if he’d never forgotten how.  
  
“Oh!” Matt’s luminous eyes widened. “Oh love I’m so sorry, I didn’t think this through.”  
  
A keening lamentation softly rent the space between them before Lance could call it back into his throat. He was mortified, but his instincts were ramping up to eleven and it was getting harder to control his vocalizations. Maybe he ought to close the window, but if he did that then Matt’s scent might start to fade.  
  
 ♬ “What’s that playing on the radio?”  ♬  
  
Lance stopped keening to listen closer. Matt’s voice was like velvet on his restless nerves.  
  
♬  “… it’s still familiar to me sends a thrill right through me…”  ♬  
  
Lance’s trills filled the night to accompany Matt’s song.  
   
♬  “My heart arranges a melody that’s never the same, a melody that’s calling your name...”  ♬  
  
Matt scaled the notes in the doo-wop progression with effortless ease, smoothing the turbulence in Lance’s nervous system. By the time he hit the final falsetto Lance’s anxiety was at full ebb.  
  
“I’m okay now Matt.” Sweat honeydewed his skin, but the nerves jumping under it had calmed.  
  
“I can sing longer.”  
  
“I’ll be okay.”  
  
He would be okay. While Matt had been singing, his scent had plenty of time to permeate Lance’s bedroom through the open window.      
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance was grateful again for the pizza towel as he stepped out of the shower because that was the only towel still clean enough to dry off with. He wriggled into the only clean clothes left in his duffel: grey track pants and a t-shirt that read, ‘buy me garlic knots and tell me I’m pretty.’ It had seemed funny when he bought it at the thrift store. Now… Well, everyone should have that one t-shirt that’s always clean for emergencies because you’d never wear it otherwise.  
  
He tucked his phone into the pants pocket and put his headphones around his neck, thinking he might listen to some music while doing the overflowing laundry, which was the only chore he had any energy for today. He had sorted the dirty clothes and linens into piles before his shower. Now he picked up the largest pile and carried it out to the porch where the laundry supplies were already sitting on top of the dryer.  
  
That wasn’t all that was out on the porch. Sometime while Lance was sleeping off the worst of his heat, an old metal glider had materialized next to the washing machine. There was a sticky note affixed to its powder-coated frame. Lance dropped his laundry and peeled off the note.

  * _I noticed you didn’t have any place to sit out here and I had this glider just taking up space in my garage.  ~M_



  
  
Lance’s smile trembled. Heats always left him emotionally wrung out, but this one had taken it to the tenth power and Matt’s concern for his comfort was the living end. Lance wanted more. With a clearer head, he could see it. Unfortunately, he could also see the danger. Not just to himself, but to Matt too.  
  
Lance started the first load of laundry. He took a seat on the glider and pushed off gently with one foot. The seat swayed back easily and soundlessly. Matt had taken the trouble to oil it before bringing it over. Lance closed his eyes against the emotion welling up in his chest. He queued up one of his mother’s favorite songs on his phone and continued to glide back and forth as the song opened on a dramatic horn flourish.  
  
♬  _I saw my problems and I’ll see the light, we got a lovin’ thing we gotta feed it right._   ♬  
  
Lance tucked one bare foot under him and continued to push off the sun-warmed concrete with the other as he let the song unwind.  
  
♬ _There ain’t no danger we can go too far, we start believing now that we can be who we are, grease is the word..._ ♬

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The preputial sheath is a real organ, just not one seen in humans, although we have homologous organs which are the foreskin and the clitoral hood. Omegaverse already gives one organ associated with canines to male alphas (the bulbus glandis) it seemed like a natural fit to give the other organ to the female alphas.


	8. Hopelessly Devoted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Holt family dinner turns into an investigative report. Sendak's investigation leads him to California, where he makes another discovery. Lance tries on costumes and this time it's fun, but you know what they say about fun and games...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for the kudos!

 

_“Dr. Page says the whole neighborhood heard you caterwauling with an omega. Are you bringing her to game night?”_  
  
Matt was 99.9 percent sure Dr. Page was exaggerating. There was no way the entire neighborhood heard them. The biology professor just happened to live across the street from Lance, so the acoustics created by the narrow side yard would have given him a front row seat.   
  
And anyway, they hadn’t been caterwauling. Matt had been singing, thank you very much, and Lance’s trills were adorable.  
  
The neighborhood of Prairie Clover Ranch had been conceived in the late fifties as a butterfly garden community and had since become a popular place to live among the faculty of several nearby institutions. There was no HOA, so there was nobody to dictate policy or complain when things like block party fundraisers, large scale backyard science experiments or marching band practices in the street happened. The freedom to raise heck was a devil’s bargain because it also meant that he lived near a bunch of his coworkers. Academics gossiped like it was part of the job description, and Pidge had taken it upon herself to solicit them all as clients of the family business.   
  
“His name is Lance.” Matt slid chopped cilantro off the cutting board into the mixing bowl of ingredients that would shortly become guacamole. “And it’s complicated.” He had her on speaker, so he could keep his hands free to work on the recipe.  
  
 _“Bring him over and I’ll uncomplicate it for him.”_  
  
Matt smiled as he ground some salt over the bowl. His sister’s protectiveness was misplaced but not unappreciated. “It’s not like that.”  
  
 _“What’s it like then?”_   Matt could hear typing on the other end of the phone and hoped she wasn’t hacking the city database again.  
  
“I like him.” Matt used the potato masher to mash up the avocados. His mother would scold him if she knew he wasn’t using a fork, but damn it, it was easier. “I’m pretty sure he likes me too.” More than sure, if his reaction at the window was any indication. “But he’s cautious.”  
  
 _“How cautious can he be if he was vocalizing at you?”_   
  
Pidge sounded distracted, probably deep in cyberspace trying to dig up information on Lance, now that she had both an address and a first name to work with. She was most likely out of luck there, too. As far as Matt knew the Balmer place was still deeded to Coran and he’d bet his state retirement plan that Coran’s arrangement with Lance was off the books.  
  
“That was my fault.” Matt pulled a face as he mixed diced onions into the almost-guacamole. “I went to his window while he was in heat.”  
  
 _“Geez, Matt.”_   The typing stopped for a second. _“Say, do you happen to know his last name?”_  
  
Busted.  
  
“McClain,” he said. “But sis, I don’t think you’re going to find anything.”  
  
 _“What, you think he’s living under an alias?”_  
  
That thought had crossed his mind. “He’s of Cuban descent. His last name doesn’t sound very Cuban.” Although he certainly couldn’t claim to be any kind of expert on the Cuban diaspora. His own mother was of Irish Mexican descent, with the name to match. Maybe there were Scottish Cubans. Maybe there was a whole municipality filled with blue-eyed, cinnamon-skinned McClains who smiled like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, but could also look so sad…  
  
 _“Thanks for the tip! I’ll bring my findings to game night, you bring the guac.”_   
  
“Wait, what?”  
  
 _Click._  
  
Matt blew his bangs out of his face tetchily. Great. Now his mother was going to grill him like a roadside chicken.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Takashi Shirogane’s driver’s license address was out of date and the lazy bastard hadn’t bothered to update it yet. Luckily, Haxus was easily able to track down where Shirogane worked and relay that information over the phone.   
  
Garden Grove NeuroRecovery Physical Rehabilitation Center had a two-storey building in institutional ecru as its central campus, surrounded by single-storey assisted living suites with ridiculously cheerful patients hobbling in and out of them. The central hub had valet parking, but Sendak opted to find the visitor’s parking himself. He did not want his target to know he was there until he was ready for him to know. He had Shirogane’s picture and statistics from the license and was confident he could recognize the one-armed nurse with Marie Antoinette syndrome, and equally confident Shirogane would not recognize him. He hadn’t come to the wedding reception, so they’d never met in person.   
  
Sendak had been waiting in his rental car for over twenty minutes and had not seen hide nor white hair of the man. He had double parked to ensure a good view of the main building’s front walk. Southern California was unseasonably warm even with the Caddy’s air conditioning cranked up. His blazer, tie and slacks should have been appropriate wear for this excursion, but the heat rendered them too tight at the seams. Feeling agitated, Sendak shut off the battery and exited the car.  
  
He set off on foot around the perimeter of the building, taking note of the entrances and peeping through ground floor windows. He had no idea what part of the building Shirogane worked in. An alpha as a nurse! Such a strange career choice. Perhaps he would ask him about that when he found him. It could be an ice breaker to put him off guard before dropping the proverbial hammer.  
  
Ice would be nice right now. Two fingers of Scotch on the rocks, served from the hand of a certain comely and properly chastised omega…  
   
One side of the grounds was set apart for a parterre, with a perron leading up to a terrace shaded by mimosa trees. The cool promise of the plants led Sendak to walk through the garden and climb the perron toward the shade, where the mimosas still dripped with hairy flowers on a day when the trees outside his townhouse back in Boston were already turning gold.   
  
Cushioned cedar chairs sat empty within a wrought iron railing. Nothing moved but gently swaying mimosa fronds. At first Sendak thought he was alone. Then he saw a wheelchair positioned next to an accent table with an open book laid on it face-down. The man in the wheelchair sat so still he hadn’t triggered Sendak’s optokinetic reflex, his natural scent so like the cedar furniture on the terrace that he was effectively camouflaged. Sendak moved close enough to stand over the man. He recognized this pathetic creature.  
  
“My omega used to enjoy telling me how much he resembles you.”  
  
The man’s fingers twitched but otherwise he remained motionless.  
  
“Frankly, I don’t see it.”  
  
Lance Charles McClain’s hair was still a rich shade of dark brown very close to Laurel’s, and with a similar tendency to curl at the ends, but McClain’s was coarser and still styled in that horrid mullet Sendak remembered from photographs. His olive complexion was nearly as swarthy as Laurel’s, but cooler where Laurel’s was warm. His face shape was oval where Laurel’s was a heart, his nose also turned up but with a rounded tip instead of pointed, his cheekbones adding a distinct curve to his partial profile where Laurel’s were so high and delicate as to be more of a swoop.  
  
Only his dark blue eyes, currently fixed on nothing, bore a close enough resemblance to pass for a genetic inheritance. But Drago Bocar also had that feature, and many more in common with Laurel. Sendak still wondered how it was possible that Lore Álvarez Fernández could have chosen this beta over the alpha when he had finally left Cuba to claim her. If that was even what had happened.  
  
“I am more convinced now than ever that I petitioned the correct father for Laurel’s hand in marriage.”  
  
He turned away, intent on getting back to the car so that he could locate a place to plan properly. It was no accident that Lance McClain was being treated in the same facility where Laurel’s trustee worked. He needed more information to deal with this new wrinkle and Haxus was going to get it for him, and in the meantime, he was going to get out of this intolerable heat.  
  
He failed to notice Lance McClain’s eyes slide sideways to stare after him, glittering like polished steel.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Matt pulled up in front of the Mission Revival house where he’d grown up and admired the flame honeysuckle his parents had put in on either side of the front porch. They were blooming bright red with healthy green leaves, an appealing contrast against the desert sand paint job that was finally complete on the stucco exterior.   
  
The house has been in the Holt family for generations and got a facelift about every twenty years, give or take a year. The nursery business was a family affair too, starting out on the land behind the house back when it was still zoned mixed-use, then being moved to another patch of land near Mesa when the family manse had been rezoned as residential and Gramps had to sell a bunch of parcels to keep from losing the whole plot.  
  
Occasionally Matt wondered what his life would be like if he’d followed Dad into the family business. There had been a few tense years after he’d decided he preferred a career in the performing arts, when his parents thought he was nuts. The nursery had an established clientele that could theoretically keep their eldest comfortable for life. Show biz was a riskier choice of vocation. Matt had the family green thumb, so it wasn’t as if a lack of talent was holding him back from participating wholeheartedly in the nursery.    
  
As much as he enjoyed shadowing Dad while he worked in the greenhouse or in the gardens of customers with ailing plants, it didn’t fill him with excited anticipation the way the smell of greasepaint, the heat of spotlights and the sound of feet trodding the boards did. Luckily for him Pidge had inherited both the green thumb and the aptitude for commerce. She made a compelling case (complete with multimedia presentation) for why she should be the next in line to take over the family business, which wound up taking a lot of pressure off Matt.   
  
It was also an incredible stroke of luck for Holt Family Nurseries that Pidge was interested in nurturing it, when with her brains and skillset she could have taken off for Silicon Valley and done very well for herself. However, it had taken her late presentation as an alpha for Dad to finally see the light. Matt knew this still rankled her. He’d overheard her on the phone with the girl she was dating at the time, Anga Something-or-other (Pidge was a serial monogamist in high school, it had been hard to keep track of her girlfriends for a little while there). _“I’m still me, my qualifications didn’t suddenly change with my dynamic! I don’t get why this even matters!”_   She never complained about it to her older brother, though.  
  
She just roasted him whenever she got the chance, which Matt assumed was on the program for tonight as well. Exhibit A: Collen Holt née O’Donojú standing in the now-open front door, hands on hips, waiting to give her wayward son a verbal spanking. Matt knew this was Pidge’s doing because Bae Bae was standing in the doorway too, with the GoPro mini attached to her collar. Her tail wagged as if she wasn’t being made complicit in the imminent chagrin of one of her humans.  
  
“¡Ven aquí!” That was a tone that brooked no arguments.   
  
Matt supposed he couldn’t blame her. The last time he’d involved himself in an omega acquaintance’s problems he’d wound up with a prominent facial scar. Cautiously he shuffled up the steps and looked into the whiskey eyes that had been passed on to him and his sister.   
  
“Hi Ma.”  
  
His mother’s lily scent was on high sillage today. She grabbed him by the lapels of his windbreaker and yanked him in, but not to hug. She sniffed around the largest scent glands on his neck and shoulders. Satisfied that he was unbitten, she started to release him, but then took another snuffle near his hair. “You’ve been around a fertile omega, a young male.” She caught another whiff. “A prime, but he’s been sick recently. Or injured, maybe.” She looked him in the eyes, ire spent to purchase worry. “What have you been doing?”  
  
Matt had been taught young never to underestimate the power of an omega’s nose. When your mother could catch you out in any direct lie, obfuscation became a valuable skill to master. “Just getting to know my new neighbor.”  
  
“Outside of his window while he’s in heat, so I hear, and my nose tells me this is true.”  
  
“Yeah…” Matt scratched the back of his neck. He still felt abashed about that. “But I swear this is different from the last time.”  
  
Last time had been in New York and had also involved a neighbor omega. He had not really known Xi well enough except to say hello to in the stairwell, but when he’d seen them being accosted by a mugger in the courtyard, he had not hesitated to come to their defense. If he had it to do over again he might have remembered to dial 911 before leaping into the fray. He still would have leapt into the fray though; ICU, stitches and all. He felt uneasy to think of what might have happened to Xi if he hadn’t interfered when he had.  
  
“What’s this I hear about you courting?” Matt’s father leaned into the doorway behind his wife. “And why are you still standing around out here? You’re letting all the cool air outdoors.”  
  
The three moved into the foyer, where Sam Holt’s fresh-mown grass beta scent combined with Colleen’s lily scent to make that comforting smell that always brought Matt back in time to family barbecues and movie nights and other sweet memories of childhood.  
  
“I don’t know if I can call it courting yet.”  
  
His mother smacked him lightly on the back of the head. “What are you calling it then?”  
  
“It’s not nice to lead an omega on, son.”  
  
“I’m not…!” Matt huffed. “I think he’s been bitten, okay? He’s got a wound on his neck.”  
  
A hush fell over the group in the foyer while they took that in. Bae Bae sat back on her haunches and whined at the sudden change in the room’s emotional temperature.  
  
Everybody had heard stories of a friend of a friend whose omega relative had to resort to mutilation to escape an unwanted bite because the alpha wouldn’t let them out of their sight long enough for the mark to fade by itself. Nobody ever knew the omega in the first degree, or why these stories were always about an omega and never a beta.  
  
“Let’s not jump to conclusions.” Sam punctured the silence. “Perhaps this omega just had an accident of some sort.”  
  
An accident that injured only a primary scent gland? Sure, maybe he fell neck-first on a garden trowel. Right.  
  
“Do you like him, mijo?”  
  
“I do, Ma.” Matt earnestly turned to each of his parents. “I think you’d like him too. He’s funny, and kind, and he knows his way around plants.”  
  
Matt had been quite impressed by that. Not many laymen would have the patience to watch over a sheet mulching conversion, knowing the ground wouldn’t be ready for planting for months. Most would have torn up the turf with a rototiller. A decent chunk of Dad’s one-off customers were people who had nearly killed their entire landscapes doing just that.  
  
“He probably comes by it honestly.” Pidge stood in the entrance to the family room. Her scent, a fresh coconutty smell like gorse, slowly overtook the others in the tiny foyer, commanding their attention. For someone who insisted her dynamic didn’t define her she could be such an alpha sometimes.  
  
“What do you mean by that?” Matt demanded.  
  
“I mean that I think I know who he really is, and I don’t think you’re gonna like it.”  
  
Ever since she’d decided to take a dating sabbatical, Pidge seemed to become more invested in Matt’s love life than even he was. _“I’ll handle the family business, you handle making the family.”_   He still wasn’t entirely sure if she’d been kidding when she made that comment. Right that minute he sincerely wished she only wanted to make fun of him for serenading an omega in heat like a hero out of some old Hollywood serial.   
  
In tense silence, the Holts repaired to the family room, where Pidge had set aside the boxes of board games to make space for her laptop and mini projector on the ebonized wood coffee table. Matt set his Tupperware bowl of guacamole down on a carved wood side table as they all settled in on tortoiseshell tufted upholstery. Bae Bae flopped down on the hand-knotted rug at Matt’s feet.  
  
“I checked into the information you gave me,” Pidge said, pulling up files on her computer, “and I did find a Lance McClain connected to the Cuban community, in Miami.”   
  
She clicked and projected an image on the family room’s cream-colored wall. Displayed there was a license issued by the Federal Aviation Administration showing that a blue-eyed, brown-haired Lance McClain with an address in Hialeah, Florida was qualified to exercise the privileges of a private pilot – but wait, the gender was wrong. It said he was a male beta? Matt knew for a fact Lance was an omega. And the date of birth was September 10th, 1977?  
  
“That can’t be right.”  
  
Pidge smiled grimly. “Here’s his picture.”  
  
She clicked again and a black and white photo of a wedding announcement from the Miami Herald replaced the FAA license. The man in the picture did bear a passing resemblance to Lance, but the woman…  
  
“She really looks a lot like Lance.”  
  
It was hard to tell for sure in grayscale, but her eyes and hair looked like they might be darker than Lance’s. However, the symmetry to the facial features was the same.  
  
“Her name was Lore Álvarez Fernández y McClain,” said Pidge. Matt’s mother gasped, and Pidge turned to her with another sad smile. “I figured you might have heard of her.”  
  
“She was a genius with rutaceae. Such a horrible shame, what happened to her.”  
  
Colleen was the one with the magic touch for fruit bearing plants at Holt Family Nurseries. This was not widely known outside the family. Matt thought it was stupid, but some of the older clients would balk at knowing that the mind responsible for cultivating their prized ornamentals belonged to an omega, even though that omega had written several peer-reviewed articles on the subject and kept up with the work of others in her field.  
  
“What happened to her?” Matt asked.  
  
“She drowned.” Colleen frowned. “Nobody knows for sure how it happened. Her body was found in Biscayne Bay, but how she got there is still a mystery. There was talk that she might have been hiding somewhere in the Upper Keys from the alpha.”  
  
“The alpha?”  
  
“The one who showed up one day claiming her son was his. He challenged her for custody, even though the omega boy was already away at college. He claimed he had a right under some old law. They said it had to go through the court system, but you know, sometimes when alphas don’t want to wait for the courts, they just bite.”  
  
Matt vaguely remembered some of this now. It had been one of several incidents that year which led to a push for more extensive legislation to protect omegas from unwanted bites. If this alpha had succeeded in biting the omega – Lore – he might have then succeeded in getting their child repatriated under his authority. Or at least, that’s what the news pundits were theorizing at the time.  
  
“Her husband didn’t mark her?” Sam asked.  
  
“Not everybody who marries chooses the claiming mark, cariño,” Colleen gently chided her husband. “It does not mean they loved each other any less than we do.”  
  
“Her child,” Matt interrupted them, “it was an omega boy?”  
  
“I was wondering when you’d clue in on that part.” Pidge clicked again, and Matt’s heart leapt into his throat as the scene changed to a zoomed-in picture of a young man standing by a guard rail with boats visible in the background. Wind had ruffled up his hair as he stared out at the water with a troubled expression. “His name was Lorenzo Fernández Diaz Sendak.”   
  
“That’s Lance!” Matt jumped out of his seat and over Bae Bae, stepping closer to the projected image to study the small differences. His hair was longer and straighter in this picture, his expression unhappier than Matt had ever seen it, but that was him. That was Lance.  
  
Pidge was saying “I was afraid you’d say that,” at the same time Sam said “Was?” and Colleen said “Sendak?”  
  
Pidge zoomed out, showing the picture as an inset to a newspaper article titled Lawyer’s omega lost in shark-infested waters.  
  
“No.” Some nameless dread filled Matt’s chest. “No, he’s not dead.” He felt an irrational urge to drive home and run to Lance’s door to prove it for himself.  
  
“I don’t think he’s dead either, Matt,” Pidge agreed in a neutral tone.   
  
Sam got up to read the article over his son’s shoulder. “You think he swam to shore, maimed his claim mark, drove clear across the country and moved in next door to your brother?” he asked doubtfully.  
  
Pidge nodded. “Pretty much.”  
  
“If he did that, then he’s cut from the same brave cloth as his mother,” Colleen sighed, “but mijo, you could be in danger if you court him. What if that alpha comes looking for him?”  
  
“Why didn’t the cops question that alpha when Lore McClain turned up dead?” Sam sounded offended.  
  
Sam was a soft touch for anyone he perceived to be in peril. Matt couldn’t understand why his mother and sister continued to be thrown whenever he displayed the same values. Maybe it was because his dad’s approach to an aggressor tended to be ‘let’s talk about this over a meal’ and Matt’s approach was more ‘let me feed you a knuckle sandwich.’  
  
“The Cuban alpha had left the country again by the time Lore’s body was found, but that’s not the alpha I meant,” Colleen said.   
  
“You meant this alpha?” Pidge clicked again, to another news article, this time with a picture of Lance wearing a lace jabot that showed off the graceful lines of his neck and shoulders, standing next to a huge smirking guy in black tie who had his giant meaty hand clamped around Lance’s upper arm. Lance’s expression in the photo was frighteningly blank. “His name is Sadak Sendak, and Ma’s right, he’s bad news. The Coast Guard’s been looking into him extra carefully since the omega Matt knows as Lance disappeared at sea. Something about this guy twigged them.”  
  
“Please don’t tell me you’ve hacked into their systems.”  
  
“Okay Dad, I won’t tell you, but I will tell you I’ve been super careful and discreet this time.”  
  
“All of this is beside the point.” Matt felt a stomach-churning mix of trepidation and exhilaration thrum through him, just like when he’d decided he was going to be a song and dance man. No wait, this was infinitely more terrifying. “Lance might not want to be courted.”   
  
“You’re going to put yourself out there anyway.” Pidge’s deceptively adorable countenance was screwed up in a fusion of pique and pride. “I know that look on your dumb face. You better just let me do one thing before you get serious.”  
  
Matt felt a bit of natural caution bringing him back to his senses. ‘Let me do one thing’ was not a casual offer, not coming from Pidge.   
  
“What’s that?”   
  
“Let me wire some extra security around your house.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance went out into the dusk to bring in the last load of laundry. Somewhere nearby, a lingering dog-day cicada was kicking up a fuss and Lance now had a pretty good notion of what had started the apple tree’s decline. The grass had simply delivered the coup de grâce. He had an idea of how to start replenishing the soil, but that could hold for a little while longer.  
  
He leaned down to open the dryer door and caught a blurred shadow running toward him out of the corner of his eye. He jumped backwards throwing up his hands in front of his face, his entire body vibrating in fear like the unseen cicada.  
  
“Oh shit, I’m sorry Lance!” Matt stopped short, his face the picture of penitence under the back porch light. The indolic smell of mud filled the air between them. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I swear! I was just so excited to see you, I forgot myself.”  
  
Lance felt his heartbeat thudding in his chest but tried to put on a smile. “Did you forget which house was yours too?”  
  
“Heh.” Matt blushed, and Lance was already starting to forgive him, damn it. “You’ve got just a fork latch holding the gate closed on your backyard fence, you probably ought to put a padlock on it.”  
  
“Thanks for the tip.” That explained how he got the glider over without breaking his back. Why did he have to be so cute? “So, you ran over here just to see my pretty face?”  
  
Matt’s eyes traveled down Lance’s chest and he suddenly remembered the message t-shirt he was still wearing. He felt his cheeks heating up.  
  
Matt’s eyes traveled back up to meet his and he grinned, the petrichor scent back in full force. “Yeah,” he said. “I did. Come with me!”  
  
Lance stared at the open hand held out to him. “Come with you where?”  
  
“To see where I work!” Matt’s smile was as open as his hand. “Come on, it’ll be fun!”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
He’d imagined it would be fun, but he honestly hadn’t imagined this. Matt watched Lance spin in front of a three-way mirror in a rococo dress and bergère hat laughing his ass off and couldn’t keep the smile off his own face. Not too shabby for a plan he’d made up on the fly while his sister tailgated him all the way home.  
  
Pidge would probably poke fun at him for it when he got back. She was setting up a perimeter right this very minute. Matt wasn’t entirely sure what that entailed but he really hoped it didn’t mean cameras in his bathrooms.  
  
He felt bad for scaring Lance, the burnt sage scent he’d put out was unmistakably fear, but all the way home those newspaper headlines kept rearing up in his mind’s eye. When he’d seen Lance in the yard he’d experienced a compulsion to feel the reassurance of his living warmth and he’d acted on it without thinking. He didn’t want to ever see him scared like that again. He much preferred the sight of him laughing.  
  
It had taken some coaxing, but Matt had convinced Lance to come with him to the community college, where he had let them into the locked and darkened theater. When Matt had turned on the house lights Lance was entranced, running right up onto the stage and peeking behind every façade. The set dressers had left the carnival set up on stage, intending to come back later and tweak it some more. The college troupe would be performing _Grease_ as their first show this year, and Matt was their faculty mentor.   
  
The carnival was proving to be the hardest set to get right for the entire production because it was not part of the original show. It was an addition from the movie that had become so popular that now audiences expected to see it at live shows and wrote angry letters to the Dean’s office when they used the Burger Palace set for the finale. Matt figured it was a good exercise in artistic license for the set dressers, so he gave them creative control to figure out how to get the carnival set done so that it aided the actors’ performances without being a distracting eyesore.  
  
He’d once worked on a haphazardly-executed carnival set when he’d played Doody at a supper club in New York. That was the bar, and so far, the student set dressers were vaulting it. To be fair though, they had more space to work with, and less risk of flammable liquids getting too close to the stage lights.  
  
Lance sashayed back behind a privacy screen decorated with art nouveau posters. Matt watched his silhouette, what parts weren’t blocked by the posters, dancing and humming to the music playing from the sound system as he removed the hat and loosened the fastenings on the dress with an intriguing degree of skill. The instrumentals for _Grease_ were already queued up, so that’s what they’d been listening to.  
  
♬  “Goodbye to Sandra Dee!”  ♬  
  
Matt laughed when Lance suddenly sang out loud. “Guess you weren’t kidding when you said you listened to this soundtrack a lot growing up?” Lance had mentioned that, and Matt had bitten back the urge to press him for more information.  
  
“Tell me about it, stud.”   
  
Lance stepped out from behind the screen in Sandy’s black rockabilly top and pedal pushers from the end of the musical. Yowza! Lance might not fill out the blouse as snugly as the Sandy who’d won the role this year, but the attitude he was giving off more than made up for it. Matt staggered back dramatically holding his hands over his heart. Lance laughed out loud at his reaction as the next song began.   
  
Matt figured there was only one thing left for him to do.   
  
 ♬ “I got chills, they’re multiplyin’ and I’m losin’ control…”  ♬  
  
Lance watched him sing the opening verse with his arms folded until Sandy’s verse came up. Then suddenly he was right in Matt’s face, blue eyes bright, herbaceous scent sweetening like nectar left over from his heat. Matt had heard that omega scents could be euphoric, but he’d never experienced it before meeting Lance.  
  
♬  “You better shape up, ‘cause I need a man,” he poked Matt in the center of his chest, “and my heart is set on you.”  ♬  
  
This song was another movie addition that got adapted into the stage show, and it turned out Lance knew a lot of the movie’s choreography and all the lyrics. He knew right when Sandy was supposed to slip out of Danny’s embrace and right when to let Danny’s hands connect with Sandy’s shimmying hips. When he invited Danny to ‘feel your way’ he hit a sultry note that most Sandys who did this tune had trouble projecting, and Matt didn’t have to fake pratfalling, that was real damn it, and it kind of hurt.  
  
But he gamely jumped back to his feet. The song wasn’t over yet. They sang at full voice as they danced all over that set and gave it a thorough vetting.  
  
 ♬  “I better shape up if I’m gonna prove -”  ♬  
  
 ♬  “You better prove that my faith is justified.”  ♬  
  
They finished the routine for “You’re The One That I Want” and leaned against each other laughing and catching their breath while the instrumental for “We Go Together” played out.  
  
Matt didn’t know how he was going to keep mentoring the kids making this musical without constantly thinking of Lance singing and strutting in that outfit. Perhaps he could make the kids sit through a long boring lecture on how the musical was set during the period when omegas were first permitted to go to public school, while at the same time the last of the laws discouraging the dynamics from marrying outside traditional mating lines were struck down as unconstitutional. That should help ensure he thought of nothing but college kids rolling their eyes at him while he was watching them practice.   
  
Either that or he could wear a rubber band around his wrist to rehearsals so that he could snap it whenever visions of Lance as Bad Sandy danced in his head.  
  
“So, how’d I do, Teach’?” Lance still sounded a bit breathless.  
  
“Best Sandy I’ve ever partnered.”   
  
Sandy was written as an omega and nearly always played by an omega. TV and film could fool the eyes, but people in the theater would lose suspension of disbelief if they smelled an unexpected dynamic wafting off the stage. The law of averages meant that Sandy was usually a female omega, but Matt had seen a few other male Sandys in his time, and a few female Tommy Chisums too.  
  
Lance’s Sandy was hands-down the sexiest one he’d ever seen, especially while laughing in pure delight when Matt had popped him into a Kaye dip right at the end. At least he wasn’t wearing the platform heels. Matt didn’t know how he would have reacted if Lance had put the shoes on, but it probably would have been embarrassing.  
  
Lance rested his hands lightly on Matt’s shoulders. Matt let his hands fall to the small of Lance’s back, holding his breath, but Lance didn’t show any sign of discomfort. The soundtrack clicked over to the next selection as they swayed gently together. Lance’s scent sparked his senses like champagne.  
  
♬  _Hold me, hold me, never let me go until you’ve told me, told me…_   ♬  
  
“You’re not using “Grease” for your outro?” Lance’s voice was low, like after he’d invited Danny Zuko to meditate his direction.  
  
“I’m trying to stick to compositions that work with the ‘50's theme.” Matt looked into Lance’s eyes, turbulent blue like the Colorado River. He and Lance were the same height, but Lance’s build was finer-boned.   
  
♬  _Thrill me (thrill me) thrill me (thrill me)…_   ♬  
  
“It is kind of disco isn’t it?” Lance smiled, eyes looking inward.  
  
“Little bit.” They were now dancing close enough that Matt could feel Lance’s breath fan his face when he spoke, and see the healing scar on his long brown neck. “It’s a good song but it creates a different mood.”  
  
Lance’s eyes flickered up again to meet Matt’s. “What kind of mood were you going for?”  
  
“We don’t have the budget for a flying car, but,” Matt’s mouth felt dry, “I was thinking for the exit music the mood should be romantic.”  
  
♬  _But they never stood in the dark with you love…_   ♬  
  
“Matt,” Lance whispered. “I have to... I have to tell you…”   
  
He looked so distressed that Matt would have let him keep the secret forever just to make him happy. He’d do anything. He leaned closer and to his wonderful shock Lance closed the distance between them.  
  
♬  _Kiss me (kiss me) kiss me (kiss me)…_   ♬  
  
He raised his palm to touch Lance’s cheek, smoother than his own, as their lips moved softly together. Lance’s long fingers carded the hair at his nape, a perfect counterweight. They broke, foreheads touching and breath mingling, and then kissed again, still dancing.   
  
 ♬ _Never, never, never let me go…_   ♬  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance felt the spell break when he put his own clothes back on. He kept his hands to himself in the front passenger’s seat of Matt’s classic car when they left the theater. Matt didn’t question him or make demands, just drove him home with the soft top down so the night breeze could cool their ardor.  
  
He couldn’t believe he’d allowed himself to forget the danger. He couldn’t let his former life catch up to him. If Sadak ever found him he’d surely try to kill him, and if Matt got in the way (and Matt had given every indication that he was the type of man who would throw himself in the way) then he’d be killed too.  
  
He couldn’t believe he’d dropped his defenses, thinking he was free.  
  
They pulled into Matt’s driveway, where he coasted to a stop in front of his closed garage door. He turned in the driver’s seat, eyes lambent as they searched Lance’s face.  
  
“You can tell me or not tell me whatever you were going to say before Lance, but I want you to know that I’ll listen, and I won’t judge you.”  
  
Lance let his gaze roam over the fine cut of Matt’s features, committing to memory the tensing of lean muscles under his hands, the softness of thick hair. “I’m not worried about being judged.”  
  
“Then what are you worried about?”  
  
“I don’t want you to be hurt.” That had come out more riven to the truth than he’d intended.  
  
“I can take care of myself.”  
  
“I know.” Lance tore his eyes away and unlocked the door. “But this is a risk I can’t let you take and still live with myself.” He let himself out of the car and ran past the bushes to his own front door.  
  
Never in his darkest flights of fancy would he have dreamed that his escape from captivity could have broken his heart again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I'm sorry? 
> 
> Don't worry, I won't leave this thread dangling for long.
> 
> ven aquí - "Come here."


	9. Emotional Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge is not one to let sleeping people lie. Talks are had, plans are made, road trip! And somebody has a crush on Shiro.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the continued kudos, and thank you for your beautiful comment aquamoonrock!

 

Lance awoke with the sense that he’d had a wonderful dream that turned into a nightmare, but he couldn’t remember the details. His head still felt achy from a long cry followed by a short sleep interrupted. The source for his early awakening was a tapping sound coming from close by. He held very still in the nest, listening and carefully testing the air with a gentle flare of nostrils and a discreetly curled tongue.  
  
There was an alpha in his room, young, female, and she smelled like coconuts and clematis.  
  
“You might as well get up, I know you’re awake.”  
  
Lance pushed himself up on his elbows and gazed through gauzy voile toward where the voice had emanated from. She was seated on the floor against the wall by the door, her fluffy chestnut head bent over a laptop.  
  
“I’m digging this throw pillow, but you really need to get some furniture in here.”  
  
Lance parted the voile curtains. She was sitting on the life vest that he’d repurposed into a pillow and decorated with a slapdash needlepoint job which read, _‘Tis Better to Have Loved and Lost than to Live with a Psycho for the Rest of Your Life_. He could just barely glimpse the blue flange under her legs folded crisscross applesauce.  
  
“Thanks?” He slid out of the nest and slipped into the short robe covered in giant flowers that some bridesmaid probably couldn’t wait to get rid of. “Who are you?”  
  
She looked up, hazel eyes skeptical behind round glasses. “You made this pillow?”  
  
“Yeah I did.” Her facial features were a familiar design etched on a smaller canvas. “You’re related to Matt.”  
  
She smiled, a crafty smile of personal validation. “Good, you’re not stupid. I love my brother and I want him to be happy but if he tried to introduce dumb genes into our family I’d be pissed.”  
  
“Whoa! Who in the what now?”  
  
“You got any coffee around here? I looked all over your kitchen and I couldn’t find your coffee machine. I never got the hang of making it in the olla, sorry.”  
  
Lance wound up making café con leche and buttered oven toast and serving it alongside the rest of the honeydew he’d diced up the day before. Best not to let that fruit go to waste, it was highly perishable, and he’d prefer not to freeze it. As he prepared breakfast, he learned that Matt’s younger sister was named Katherine but preferred to be called Pidge for reasons she declined to explain, and she was taking over the family business, just so he knew.  
  
“Okay?” Lance set the sunflower baking dish laden with warm toast down on the table.  
  
“I heard you like gardening, but I’m going to be the head Holt at Holt Family Nurseries someday.” She took a crunchy-buttery bite of toast. “This is good, I didn’t know you could make toast in the regular oven. Though I guess it makes sense, it’s still circulating heat, just on a larger scale than a toaster. Seems like overkill just to toast a few slices of bread though.”  
  
“I don’t have a toaster,” Lance said absently. Matt’s family had pruned the apple tree that wound up a part of his nest, because of course they had. “Anyway, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.” Lance sat down adjacent to her and picked up his coffee mug to sip. Sweet nectar of life, take him away to caffeinated Shangri La.  
  
“If you’re rejecting my brother because you’re afraid of your ex showing up, I’m glad you’re concerned for him, but stop running away because it’s getting counterproductive.”  
  
Coffee sloshed out of the mug as it thudded back onto the table. Lance beat on his chest because the warm drink went down the wrong pipe. When he had cleared the liquid from his lungs he met Pidge’s topaz eyes across the table and oh hell, she knew.  
  
“How?” he rasped.  
  
“I’m a genius with no regard for personal boundaries where my family’s safety is concerned, that’s how.”  
  
Lance put his head down on the table, taking deep breaths through the diaphragm, holding and releasing. In, out, breathe. If she had figured it out, then if Sadak ever suspected all he had to do was put his best dog on it, that oily bastard Haxus, and he’d had it. Finis, finale, as Dad would have said.  
  
“Hey.” Pidge leaned over and poked Lance’s shoulder. “Whatever you’re afraid of, I can guarantee you they’ve never dealt with the likes of me before.”  
  
Lance cradled his hot forehead in his arms. “You ever dealt with a hacker named Haxus before?”  
  
“I’ve heard of him.” Pidge sounded thoughtful. “Never tangled with that one before, but I’m game. Tell me everything you know about him, even if it seems inconsequential.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Matt toed off the concrete to keep the wicker swing rocking on his back patio. His socks were getting filthy but that was okay. They would go well with his tangled hair and the ginger shadow starting to come in on his jaw. All he had on his schedule for the day was a grading calibration session. The other profs could just deal with him being scruffy and ornery at the conference table. Might give them some new gossip to chew over. The bit about a prankster sending Limburger cheese to Iverson through the interoffice mail bins was losing its charm.  
  
He heard a dull thump of feet hitting the turf on his side of the fence but didn’t look up or stop swinging. Pidge was probably testing the security. She’d stayed over in his guest room, brewed a carafe of coffee in the drip machine, helped herself to three-quarters of it and then disappeared for parts unknown. The only reason he knew she was still on the premises was because her hybrid was still parked in his garage.  
  
_“You’re rivaling Keith for emo broodery over there, brother mine.”_  
  
Pidge had installed an intercom system throughout his entire house. Matt raised his middle finger intending to flip off the camera, then realized he had no idea where the camera was hidden so he just waved his one finger salute around in all directions.  
  
_“If only you could count higher than one.”_  
  
“Your face is higher than one!” Matt knew it was a bad comeback, but it was too late to take it back, so he slunk in the swing with his hands tucked in his armpits and glared at the concrete in front of his dirty stocking feet.  
  
A pair of Converse sneakers with writing all over them shuffled into his line of sight. Matt could barely make out what was written on them, the handwriting was so cramped. _A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew, and the young winds fed it with silver dew_. The writing continued past the toe cap onto the vamp of the right shoe. There was a different poem on the left shoe, but it was the same poet. Whoever decorated those shoes was a Percy Bysshe Shelley fan. Matt raised his eyes up long legs in faded denim and an oatmeal-colored Henley shirt with a mended collar to Lance’s serious face.  
  
“Hi,” Lance said, unsmiling.  
  
“Don’t you mean bye?”  
  
Matt wished he could recall the words as soon as they’d left his mouth. He didn’t really want Lance to go. Every step forward with Lance was followed by another step back and it made his stomach clench with anxiety. He’d hoped they’d been done with that dance last night.  
  
Lance smiled bitterly. He shook his head and turned slowly to go back the way he’d come, which was apparently over the fence between their yards.  
  
“Don’t walk away from me!” Matt jumped clear of the swing, heard the chains behind him creaking from Newton’s third law.  
  
Lance turned back, mouth open in shock. Matt flared his nostrils. Not burning sage, no. Not fear. The scent swirling back in his direction was piquant like paprika.  
  
“Okay then.” Lance’s eyes were blue fire. “You want to know what you’re getting into if I don’t walk away?”  
  
“A mean bastard of an ex is what I hear, but I don’t scare easy.”  
  
Lance’s laugh snarled like thorns. “Think so, do you?” His legs ate up the ground between them until he was within arm’s reach. “He managed to do all this from just one punch.” Lance unbuttoned his jeans and shoved them off one hip. Yellow and green blotches painted the revealed skin, disappearing behind fabric to suggest a much larger affected area.  
  
Matt felt cold shock wash over him. He couldn’t believe Lance had been dancing so energetically just the night before with that lingering testament to pain pulling on his movements.  
  
He swallowed and raised his eyes to meet and hold Lance’s hot gaze. “I’m not giving up,” he said.  
  
A short keen escaped from between Lance’s teeth before he choked it back. “He’ll do worse if he finds me, and not just to me but to anyone who gets in his way.” The sage smell was starting to make its presence felt.  
  
Lance was afraid, but not for himself.  
  
“I’m not walking away from you.” Matt dared to take a step closer. “Besides, I’ve got something to fight with that I’m betting he doesn’t.”  
  
Lance laughed on a sob. “You got a giant mecha hidden somewhere that nobody knows about? Big O, maybe?”  
  
“I’ve got people that care about me. That means that by extension they care about you, because Lance?” Slowly he reached out to hold Lance’s shoulders. “I care about you.”  
  
Lance let go of his fly, the sudden removal of tension causing the jeans to flap partially closed again. He put his face in his hands on a moan. “Oh, why couldn’t I have met you before?”  
  
“Because we wouldn’t have been the same people then.” Gently, mindful now of the bruises, Matt pulled Lance into his arms.  
  
Lance came willingly. “You’re an idiot.” He sounded both sorrowful and fond.  
  
“So I’ve been told.” He wanted to memorize the shape of Lance’s ear against the tip of his nose. “I happen to think I’m a very smart man, though.”  
  
Lance laughed wetly again, his breath warm against Matt’s unshaven cheek.  
  
They stood there together for a long time, while Matt’s sister watched over them benignly from a tiny camera hidden in the Anna apple tree in Matt’s yard, its fulsome branches reaching over the fence toward the bare Dorsett Golden in Lance’s yard.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“You really think this will work?” Lance stared at the mannequin head sitting on Matt’s dining room table. The wig it wore was dark auburn with a side part and shoulder-length curls.  
  
“When we get you all made up nobody should be the wiser.”  
  
Lance had spent the better part of his day cleaning up his living room while Pidge set up motion detectors around his front door and picture window. The sticks in the dark corner of the living room were rattan furniture pieces which turned out to be in pretty good shape. Someone had been diligently treating them with linseed oil before they’d wound up as objet d’art in the corner, but all the cushions were still missing as well as whatever sort of top was originally on the coffee table. Pidge was right, Lance needed to find a garage sale or a thrift store, or something. What if Coran wanted to come over to discuss how his house was coming along over coffee? He’d need a place to sit where he wouldn’t be reminded of dildos.  
  
When Matt got home from work, he’d brought with him an extra-large pepperoni pizza and a wheeled wardrobe full of wigs, costumes and stage makeup. They all went over to Matt’s to discuss his plan over dinner because he had more places to sit in his house. Matt had Frankensteined together a conference table with four director’s chairs and a piano bench to serve as his dining room set. He had a way of seeing possibilities where others only saw a collection of disparate items. It should have looked silly but somehow it worked, which gave Lance hope that this plan could be made to work too.  
  
For Lance to go to Garden Grove in disguise without also disguising the fact that he was an omega male was just too risky if Sadak had eyes on the facility. There was no way they could successfully disguise Lance as a male of any other dynamic, not with the strength of his prime pheromones. So instead Matt proposed to disguise him as an omega girl.  
  
“You’re built like a runway model,” Matt said, “you can wear anything you want. Which is why I know you’ll look perfectly natural in heels and a dress.”  
  
Lance didn’t doubt that. Sadak had preferred him clothed in androgynous haute couture designed for omega males. He’d had to learn to pull it off as if he’d been born to sit cheek to jowl with other society spouses in the middle rows during Fashion Week. “What about my scent though?” If any other omegas happened to be in the facility they might be more inclined to trust their noses than their eyes, and he would smell like a male to them.  
  
“We got that covered.” Pidge twirled mozzarella cheese on her finger and slurped it off like a heathen. “Ma’s gonna take a long bath and then you’re gonna take a bath in the same water right after her. Presto, change-o, female omega scent-o.”  
  
“I don’t know.” Honestly, the scent issue was still the only sticking point for Lance. They’d convinced him on the rest. He wasn’t too precious to sit in somebody else’s bathwater, he just didn’t think it would work. “I’ve tried dampening my pheromones before. Nothing I’ve used ever worked longer than a couple of hours.” The drive to the Garden Grove facility would be over five hours.  
  
The Holts looked at each other, communicating on a sibling wavelength.  
  
“Maybe if he bathes with Dad’s soap that he uses before he goes birdwatching-”  
  
“-and then takes along some eau de Ma in a spritzer bottle to refresh the female scent periodically, that could work!”  
  
_“Here’s what you need to do,”_ Keith said, scaring the shit out of everybody at the table.  
  
“Woops, forgot I left him on speaker.” Pidge pulled her cell phone out of her messenger bag and set it face up in the middle of the table while Matt got up off the floor and Lance rescued his slice of pizza from the kitchen counter where it had landed after he sent it sailing through the air.  
  
When had she been talking to him without Lance noticing? He’d been in her company most of the day!  
  
_“You guys are so melodramatic.”_  
  
“No Keith.” Lance pouted over the loss of a pepperoni that had fallen off the slice onto the travertine tiles. “You are a conversational ninja.”  
  
They sat back down around the table and together they hashed out a plan to dampen Lance’s scent just enough to disguise it. The reason Keith’s scent was so low-sillage was not by nature. He had been using prescription scent blockers since adolescence. His mother had demanded them from his pediatrician after she witnessed an adult alpha shamelessly hitting on him right in front of her, and Keith had just never stopped using them. He was willing to share some of his products with Lance for this trip.  
  
He was also willing to drive Lance out there and back, but he strongly recommended they drive at night due to high daytime temperatures. The most direct route to where Dad was being treated would require taking I-10 through the low desert, and while autumn now ruled the nights, summer still hadn’t released its grip on the days.  
  
Keith thought it would be best if they packed Lance’s wig and female clothes in something that smelled like Mrs. Holt. That way they could stop somewhere closer to the rehab center for Lance to shower with the products Keith used and put on the clothes while they still smelled strongly like Mrs. Holt. Lance agreed, because he knew how fast his own scent could overpower anything he tried to layer on top of it. The longer the fabric was exposed to the scent of the other omega, the better. In hindsight he had to admit he was impressed with the stuff Keith was using, but he still felt sure that the true test would be using it on himself.  
  
“I think I should be the one to drive Lance out there and help him with the costume,” Matt said. “No offense, Keith.”  
  
“How you gonna get Provost Sanda to approve two days off work on short notice?” Pidge challenged him. “You can’t use sick days, not living in this neighborhood. People will see you leaving and it will get back to her.”  
  
Lance would love to go on a road trip with Matt, now that they’d talked down some of their mutual fears. He couldn’t wait to find out how it felt to snuggle up next to him in the dark, but he didn’t want to find out at the expense of Matt’s career. At least one of them should be able to keep doing the job he loved.  
  
“Relax,” he said. “Keith already saw me naked when he and Coran brought me dildos.”  
  
“Say what?” Matt lunged over the table for the phone, which Pidge plucked up and held out of his reach. “Naked dildos?!”  
  
“And he’s not remotely attracted to me!” Lance hunted around the table for the pen and paper they’d been using. “Are you Keith?”  
  
_“Nope.”_  
  
There was no point trying to hold onto his dignity with that guy. Not after the carrot fornication conversation.  
  
“Anyway,” Lance said as he finally found the paper and pen, “I’ve got an idea that should put your mind at ease.” On the pad he wrote: _Keith only likes male alphas, you know this already, chill_.  
  
“Let’s hear it,” Matt said reluctantly, dropping back into his chair.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“I’m still not in love with this idea,” Matt said as he helped load the costume kit into the postage-stamp sized cargo area of Keith’s highly-customized Suzuki Samurai, “and it’s not the part where you’re driving off into the night with an alpha who saw your penis.”  
  
He’d gotten over his reaction to the whole naked dildos thing after watching Lance interact with Keith in person. Their bickering had a sibling flavor to it, and the scents they were putting out toward one another were not amorous.  
  
“If Hunk is half as chivalrous as his cousin you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Lance tried to reassure him.  
  
Herschel Garrett, or Hunk as he said he preferred to be called, had sounded like just as much of a teddy bear on the phone as Kay was. He had already known who Lance was, because Kay sent him a long rambling email explaining how he might get a call. If he sounded surprised about anything it was that Lance actually used his number, but he was affable when they explained they just wanted to borrow his condo for an hour or two.  
  
“I still feel like I should be there.” Matt gently took Lance by the upper arms. “What if he shows up and I’m not there?”  
  
Now they were getting down to the heart of it. Matt had been gung ho for this idea until he couldn’t be the one with Lance during its execution. He hadn’t been scared off by the fading bruises on Lance’s body, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t scared at all. Just not for his own safety.  
  
Lance returned the loose embrace. “If I’ve managed to learn anything from this whole experience it’s that you don’t always get to say goodbye when you want to the most.” He’d left so many goodbyes on Mamá’s voice mail, after. Of course, she could never reply. “You just have to keep taking it on faith that you’re gonna get the next chance or you’ll go crazy worrying about when your time will be up.”  
  
“We gotta go,” Keith called as he exited Matt’s house with Pidge on his heels. The waning moon above them was high in the sky. They needed to make it to Hunk’s place before he had to leave for his first shift.  
  
“You’ll come back,” Matt said as he enfolded Lance closer in his arms. His scent encircled Lance like a bower.  
  
“I’ll do everything I can to come back to you.”  
  
There was more force behind their kiss this time, their lips sealing their intentions to see each other again. They parted reluctantly so that Matt could pass Lance down into the passenger seat of the little red SUV.  
  
Lance watched Matt in the wing mirror for as long as he could as the Samurai pulled out of the driveway and turned at the corner.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
They merged onto US 60 and then onto I-10 without incident, listening to a cryptid podcast that Keith played from his cell phone through the car’s speakers using an FM transmitter. They passed through the darkness of a long underpass and Lance closed his eyes and focused on the banter of the podcast hosts to avoid thinking of dark ocean pressing in on all sides of him. Strange that the close canopy of his nest never triggered that memory, but a large cement enclosure always could. Something about the way that headlights reflected on concrete reminded him of moonlight filtering through water.  
  
“You alright?”  
  
Lance opened one eye to peek at Keith, who was glancing back at him between looking ahead to watch the road. The dude was observant, in his suffer-no-fools way.  
  
“Just trying not to think too hard about the past.”  
  
“Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow.”  
  
Lance smiled with closed eyes. “You’ve been reading my shoes.”  
  
“They were out there to read,” Keith replied. “You want to talk about it?”  
  
Lance opened his eyes. They had emerged from the underpass. Street lights illuminated the highway ahead. “I don’t want to be afraid for the rest of my life.”  
  
“I don’t think anybody gets to go through life without any fear at all, you just have to push through it sometimes.” Keith adjusted his grip on the wheel. “Seems to me like you’re pushing through your fear pretty well.”  
  
“Thanks Keith.” Lance wondered what Keith had feared, that he knew not to sugarcoat it for others. “You know that offer to listen goes both ways, right?”  
  
Keith glanced to the side in surprise. Had he not been expecting for his gruff kindness to be reciprocated?  
  
“Um, thanks man.”  
  
“De nada.”  
  
Keith smiled then, a small twerk of the lips, but it was real. Any expression that flitted across his face before he was able to close it off likely was.  
  
They drove on through the darkness listening to the podcasters talk about Chupacabra, the Thunderbird and other creatures that inhabited the mysterious corners of the human experience. The lights from nearby cities thinned and disappeared and the lanes narrowed from eight to four.  
  
“Mind if I rock out?” Keith asked.  
  
Lance grinned. “Driver picks the music.”  
  
Keith laughed and tapped the media player on his phone, which was mounted in a cradle on the dashboard. Electric guitar reverberated through the vehicle’s tiny cabin.  
  
♬  _I come from the water, I crawled upon the shore…_   ♬  
  
Lance nodded his head to the beat, which Keith drummed out on the steering wheel.  
  
They were headed for Dad and making good time. He’d face his fears as they came.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Florina adjusted her red and white striped smock before slowly opening the patient’s door. Who said redheads couldn’t wear red? She rocked this uniform.  
  
And she was rocking it for an audience of one. Rats. She had been hoping to find Shiro in here. He was often here even late into the night. He had looked like he was having a stressful day and she had thought to offer her shoulder for crying on. Maybe she could even help him adjust his prosthetic arm, if it was hurting him. That would mean she’d get to take off his shirt!  
  
_“But you’re still in high school,”_ he’d say.  
  
_“But I’m already eighteen,”_ she’d say, _“I’m old enough to love.”_   And then…  
  
But anyway, he wasn’t here. As Florina’s eyes adjusted to the dim lighting in the room she saw that the patient was awake and looking right at her. She might as well make herself useful. Maybe if Shiro saw what a good job she was doing taking care of his patients he’d finally notice her.  
  
She went to Mr. McClain’s bedside and leaned down to peer into his face. He had been a handsome man before the accident. There were pictures of him with his family on the nightstand and the walls around his bed. You could still sort of see it, even though years abed had stolen the muscle from his limbs and given his olive skin a pallor.  
  
“Do you want to sit up?” she asked.  
  
He nodded. It was barely perceptible. He was still having trouble commanding his movements. Florina pressed the button to raise the head of the bed, which lifted with a robotic whir.  
  
“There. Is that alright?”  
  
He nodded again.  
  
“Are you thirsty?”  
  
He was. Florina washed and refilled his hands-free mug and set it in the bedside holder, then guided the long flexible straw to his lips. As she watched him sip, she noticed he had one hand resting on his opposite arm and his fingers were tap-tap-tapping away.  
  
“You trying to send me a telegram?” she joked.  
  
He let go of the straw. “Baa mun,” he whispered.  
  
He murmured sometimes. It was very difficult to understand what he was trying to say, if he was trying to say anything and not just exercising his long-unused larynx. Except for that one time, when she’d told him his son had drowned and he had very clearly said, _“no.”_  
  
“Baa mun.”  
  
“Batman, huh?” Florina tucked his loosened covers back around him, checked his vitals and lowered the head of the bed again. “I’ll tell Shiro, maybe he can bring the A/V equipment in here and we can watch it together!”  
  
This was the best idea yet for getting some quality time with Shiro in a dark room. Hopefully he wouldn’t want to set it up in the day room, then she’d have to put up with that twit Pleasance being all judgy next to her on the couch, like she had any room to talk. She should be the one judged for wearing a grandma grey dye job and purple eyeshadow with a candy striper uniform, it so didn’t match!  
  
It was a good thing Mr. McClain had been awake when she’d opened the door. It was a sign, she just knew it. This was the twenty-first century and this beta girl could totally get her alpha man. She was so glad she came in here!  
  
“Baa mun.”  
  
“I’ll see you tomorrow, have a good rest.”  
  
Florina closed the door behind her. Inside the room, the elder Lance McClain continued to tap on his arm.  
  
_The bad man stands over me… The bad man stands over me… The bad man stands over me…_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tis Better to Have Loved and Lost than to Live with a Psycho for the Rest of Your Life - I'm not sure who came up with this phrase, but there are variations of it all over etsy. I have it on a plaque.


	10. By Any Other Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hunk is a cinnamon roll. Keith relates a bit of his past. Shiro needs a break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the kudos, and thank you Skriy and Moshpit for the comments! :) I've been updating fast because I had the vast majority of this already written before I started posting. I just went back in and made a few edits after watching season 7. The only reason I haven't fully committed to a specific update schedule is because I'm concerned that if I do that, Murphy's Law will step in and there will come a day where something happens to take away my posting time.

 

Hunk lived in an Italianate complex in Anaheim with landscaping that was lush with fruit trees and tropical plants. The sunrise over the guest parking area was a gradient purple majesty chased by a peachy glow, like an airbrushed license plate except that it was totally real. Lance took a moment to snap a pic and text it to Matt with a message that they got there safely. Matt texted back a pic of leftover pizza slices which he had arranged into a rough heart shape and which he was evidently eating for breakfast, and a message to enjoy his time out there.  
  
Right at that second Lance was just looking forward to enjoying Hunk’s shower. They’d stopped at an all-night gas station in Blythe to fill up the tank and fill up themselves with snack foods and soft drinks brimming with preservatives. The dose of caffeine and sugar had goosed Lance into singing the Roadrunner theme song over and over until finally Keith hollered, “Driver picks the music!” and cranked up “All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down” loud enough to muffle him. So, they were both quite ready to get out of the car.  
  
They hauled out the costume and makeup bags and walked up brick pavement past sugar sumac to a terrace surrounded by orange birds of paradise, where they found a basil green front door with the number 2 affixed to it in bronze. There was a matching lion head door knocker underneath the door number. Keith ignored it and banged on the door with his fist.  
  
“Dude,” Lance said.  
  
“What?”  
  
Before Lance could explain the concept of rudeness to Keith, the door opened and there stood a guy who was undoubtedly related to Kay Garrett. Then he opened his mouth and the difference between them became immediately apparent as pure California sunshine poured out.  
  
“Hey guys, I just pressed a fresh pot of Yellow Caturra and I’ve still got some whole wheat cinnamon rolls left, did the 91 Freeway give you any trouble? Merging off the interchange can be so stressful, come on in! Oh, by the way, I’m Hunk.”  
  
He was already dressed for work in a chef’s head wrap, slip resistant high tops and a utility shirt with mesh panels to keep him cool. Like his cousin, he was a beta with co-dominant alpha emitting a gourmet scent. In Hunk’s case it was the rich scent of coconut milk combined with something savory that teased but did not resolve into a readily identifiable note.  
  
Introductions were exchanged as they were led to a kitchen that made Lance give out a low whistle. Hunk had built-in everything, all of it top-of-the-line, and an enormous butcher block kitchen island. Through clever maximization of vertical space and a pale yellow color scheme he’d managed to fit it all into a condo-sized allotment without making it feel cramped.  
  
“Your kitchen is freaking magnificent,” Lance said in frank admiration. He had never personally aspired to more than becoming as good a home cook as his mother, Sadak’s expectations notwithstanding, but he could appreciate the drive to excel at the epicurean arts in others.  
  
Hunk beamed. “Aw, thanks.”  
  
He shortly discovered that Hunk made excellent use of that magnificent kitchen when he tasted the cinnamon rolls and coffee, which Hunk served up in the breakfast nook. He had a banquette like Lance, but his was a comfortable three-sided design instead of a cozy two.  
  
“I camp belief fis is whole wheap,” Keith said while stuffing his face like he hadn’t just been eating Takis in the car. An alpha’s metabolism was a thing of wonder.  
  
“Thanks man. I ground the flour myself, I think that’s the key. Well, that and the Maillard reaction from the glaze. Or maybe it’s just that I let it rise a lot slower than when I use refined flour.”  
  
Hunk was gazing upon Keith’s rampant gluttony with a look of open curiosity and Lance realized with a start that Keith’s dynamic was kind of hard to miss in the closer confines of the breakfast nook. Hunk probably didn’t meet a lot of other co-dominant alphas in his day-to-day life, outside of the ones he was related to. He was on the verge of innocently walking into a verbal landmine.  
  
“We really appreciate you doing this, Hunk,” Lance said, placing an arm around his massive shoulders. “If you could show me where the shower is I’ll start getting ready, so we don’t make you late for work.”  
  
“Oh! Right, right. Guest suite’s this way.” Hunk slid out of the banquette with Lance right behind him. He led Lance to a short hall off the living room. “You can put your stuff in the spare room if you want, might be easier. Bathroom’s right across the hall.”  
  
Keith passed them in the narrow hallway with the wardrobe and makeup kits. Lance kept a firm grip on Hunk’s shoulders, which Hunk responded to with a raised eyebrow. Lance waited until Keith was in the guest bedroom laying out the bags on the bed, then leaned up to Hunk’s ear.  
  
“Whoa,” Hunk said, sotto voce. “I’ve got a girlfriend, man.”  
  
“And I respect her claim,” Lance said, “but I can see the wheels turning in your head and I wouldn’t have felt right not warning you that Keith is kinda touchy about the co-dominant thing.”  
  
“What?” Hunk held a hand over his broad chest, honestly pained. “That’s a shame, he shouldn’t cut himself off from a such an extraordinary aspect of his inner being.”  
  
“I know, right?” Lance sighed.  
  
“Hey Lance, I put the scent blockers in with the other stuff, don’t forget to use them in the order I told you.” Keith walked over with an arm out in front of him, a toiletry kit bag in his extended hand.  
  
“Thanks Keith, I won’t forget.”  
  
“Oh, you beautiful stranger!” With absolutely no warning, Hunk pulled a very surprised Keith into a bear hug. “Let me embrace you as a fellow multi-faceted soul having a human experience on planet Earth!”  
  
Keith’s eyes peeked out over Hunk’s huge bicep like a vengeful feline being transported to a bath.  
  
_I was only trying to warn him to be more sensitive!_   Lance mouthed at Keith.  
  
Keith’s glittering eyes narrowed. Because Lance’s entreaty had worked, just not in the way he’d expected.  
  
“I’ll just be in the shower then!” Lance meeped as he took the shower kit and flew into the guest bath. He didn’t have to be brave right that second, he could save his courage for later when he was trying to pass as a different primary gender in front of a bunch of people who had seen his picture multiple times.  
  
Hunk’s guest bath tub looked large enough for a decadent soak, but Lance only needed it to shave his legs and arms with the disposable razor and travel-size bottle of hair conditioner that Pidge had packed for him. He didn’t have a lot of hair on his limbs, but what hair he did have needed to go, because his dress had cap sleeves and a knee-length skirt. Female omegas had a higher estrogen to androgen ratio than any other dynamic, and due to this they tended to have less noticeable hair on their extremities. It would also help Keith’s products work better if he didn’t have his own body hair acting as a scent trap.  
  
After shaving, he closed the shower curtain and pulled up the diverter to send the flow of water to the shower-head. First in the order of products Keith generously shared was the all-in-one nullifier liquid soap, which he lathered everywhere, even in the hair on his head. He was going to be wearing a wig, so it didn’t matter if his hair dried frizzy (but it sure did explain a lot about Keith’s hair). He got out of the shower and dried off with one of the soft bath sheets folded on the counter.  
  
Next step was the blocking cream which was to be smoothed thoroughly over each scent-producing gland. When he was done he was amazed. He had to sniff close to the skin to catch his own pheromones, and that was far closer than a stranger would be likely to get to him. If he avoided queues and crowded elevators he should be fine for so long as the effect lasted.  
  
That would be the more stringent test. They probably should have done a trial run before coming out here, but Keith had classes to keep up with, and Lance was anxious to see Dad and assure him that he was alive. They were here now, might as well keep going with it. Pidge had made a run out to her parents’ house and filled a spray bottle with her mother’s bath water, and Lance used it as a finishing touch, though he didn’t expect that it would last as long as the scent adhering to the fibers of the clothes.  
  
He took the cuticle cream out of the kit and slathered his hands. Sadak had insisted on regular manicures and Lance usually wore gloves to clean, so his nails were still in pretty good shape. They did not look feminine, but not every woman wore long nails. His fingers were proportionally long enough that he could probably get away with what he had as long as he kept his hands in demure poses. He had plenty of practice at that. Sadak had hated when he talked with his hands.  
  
Or he could ask Keith for his take on it. The guy seemed to know an awful lot about such things and it was making Lance curious. He wrapped the bath sheet around him like a sarong and waltzed out of the bathroom to the guest bedroom, unconcerned about his dishabille. One of these guys had already seen him naked and the other one had a girlfriend.  
  
Hunk had gone Old West for the guest bedroom decor, with an ornate metal bed, an oak highboy with a mirror, and a wooden chair in place of a nightstand. Keith had taken the chair and Hunk had sat himself down on the bed’s skirted coverlet, the two of them talking in low tones but seeming very comfortable with each other, which Lance was glad to see. Keith was even smiling a little bit. Then he saw Lance and got a sort of constipated look on his face, like he was trying to work himself up to being annoyed but he was too relaxed to commit to it. It would have been funnier if Lance wasn’t the target of the annoyed part of the equation.  
  
Hunk turned to Lance in surprise. “Wow, I totally did not smell you coming!”  
  
“This stuff works like magic,” Lance said, walking farther into the room to hand the toiletry kit back to its owner. “Thanks Keith. I owe you one.” He tried to convey his apologies for earlier with a forlorn expression.  
  
“I told you,” Keith said, smirking. “Now you don’t smell like a spice rack anymore.”  
  
“Yeah, okay wise guy.” Lance rolled his eyes and started unpacking the garment bag. Placed on top of the clothes was a soft red bag that had not been in there when Lance had helped Matt pack up the costume. “What’s this?”  
  
“You’re gonna need more than just a dress to convince anybody you’re a woman.” Keith stepped up next to him and took the bag from his hands. “This should help.” He unzipped the bag to reveal white lacy underthings.  
  
“Wow,” Lance breathed, reaching in to touch. “Where did you get these?”  
  
Now Keith rolled his eyes. “Just put them on, Lance.”  
  
“Okay.” Lance tossed his towel on the chair Keith had just vacated and pulled the first lacy thing out of the bag. It was a bra with pockets to hold silicone discs over his chest. “Pretty!”  
  
He slid his arms into the straps and reached behind him for the clasp, which was very similar to lingerie he was accustomed to in some respects, just highlighting a different part of the body. When he was done he had two bell-shaped globules adhered to his chest. It was the closest he would come to having teats until he had a baby. No scratch that, these were bigger than he was likely to ever get. He palmed them and squeezed.  
  
“Stop playing with your boobs.” Keith wasn’t even trying to hide that he was amused anymore. “You have to tuck before you can put on the gaffing panties.”  
  
Keith pulled the underpants out of the bag. They looked kind of like shapewear, if the shaping panel extended down the belly under the crotch instead of across the hips.  
  
“I don’t have to tuck in a shirt, I’m not wearing pants,” Lance said as he turned to get a load of his breasticles in the highboy mirror. Instead, he got a load of Hunk’s shocked expression. “Oh! Sorry man, I didn’t realize I was being obnoxious.”  
  
“He never realizes when he’s being obnoxious,” Keith said jokingly, turning to Hunk as well. “Oh…”  
  
Hunk was not staring in shock at Lance’s junk. He was staring a little to the right because what was left of Lance’s bruising had been on full display since he’d dropped the towel.  
  
“I thought Kay would have mentioned this you,” Lance said. “You know, in the email.”  
  
“He did, he did.” Hunk sucked in a breath. “It’s different when you actually see it, though.”  
  
He looked really upset and Lance felt a paradoxical desire to comfort Hunk for seeing damage to Lance’s own body.  
  
“Somebody you were supposed to be able to trust did that to you,” Hunk went on, “and now you’re putting on an elaborate disguise, just so you can see your family without him catching you. How can you be smiling and laughing right now?”  
  
“Because I want to keep being able to smile and laugh.” Lance sat down next to Hunk on the coverlet and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Because I can’t let him take every piece of me away. He’s taken enough. I won’t let him have the rest.”  
  
“I’m sorry.” Hunk’s big brown eyes wobbled with tears. “You’re being so strong and I’m being a baby. I’ll stop crying and let Keith go ahead and explain whatever it was he was going to explain.”  
  
“Lance needs to pop his balls back in his inguinal canal and tuck his penis toward his anus.” Baldly frank as ever, was Keith.  
  
Hunk turned the color of parchment. “I’m gonna leave that part to you guys. I’ll be cleaning up the breakfast dishes.” He patted Lance’s hand that was resting on his shoulder and then hied himself to the kitchen.  
  
It turned out popping Lance’s ovotestes all the way back into his inguinal canal was easier said than done because he had a round ligament of uterus also making use of that space. Fortunately for Lance omega male parts were relatively dainty, so at Keith’s advice (and just how did he know all this stuff?) he nestled his balls between his thighs and tucked his penis down between them. Keith had to help him into the gaffing panties. It was not the most comfortable feeling in the world, but it was painless.  
  
The panties had garter strings attached and Keith had brought the hosiery to go with them. They were sheer with lace that matched the undies. There were dance tights packed in with the costume, but Keith’s sheers would look more natural with the whole outfit, so he accepted the gracious offer. Lance didn’t need any help rolling up and attaching the stockings, he was an old hand at that. Omega male lingerie wasn’t identical to female lingerie, but it had some specific points in common.  
  
He went ahead and stepped into the character shoes to reduce any risk of getting a run in the pretty hose. The shoes looked similar enough to Mary Janes that hopefully nobody would notice that they were designed for performance, not fashion. Matt had picked out a pair in a light enough tan that from a distance they looked like a match to the peach-colored dress.  
  
“Gotta hand it to him, Pidge’s brother has a pretty good eye,” Keith said as he looked him over once he had the dress on.  
  
Lance checked himself out in the mirror and had to agree. The cap sleeves and peplum skirt on the dress deemphasized the proportion of his shoulders to his hips, and the keyhole collar provided an illusion of cleavage where there was none.  
  
The best part for his disguise, though, was that the dress smelled strongly of lilies. The scent of female omega clung stronger to the clothes than the impromptu eau de toilette did to Lance’s skin, strong enough that so long as Keith’s scent blockers held out, anyone in the vicinity would probably assume it was Lance smelling like lilies. The fact that this was the scent of his beau’s mother would have made him uncomfortable when he’d been younger and sillier, but now it was helping to keep him from flying apart with jitters. It made him feel like somebody wanted him to be safe.  
  
Keith helped Lance put on the stocking cap for his wig and pin back the protruding wisps of his hair, again with a curiously expert hand. He put the lace front wig over it saying it was just to check the fit before starting his makeup. “If I style the bangs across your forehead then I might not need to cut off all the lace,” he said musingly as he finger-combed the wig’s strands, which also smelled like Mrs. Holt.  
  
Lance held back the side bangs to peer at himself in the mirror. “I look a lot like Mamá,” he said softly. He did. The hair was more Titian, and his eyes were blue but otherwise he could have passed for her at first glance. “I hope I don’t freak out Dad.”  
  
“I can make you look completely different,” Keith promised as he brought out the stage makeup Matt had packed, along with another makeup bag that had been hidden in a pocket under the lingerie.  
  
“Make me look like a female omega,” Lance replied. “If that makes me look like Mamá, then so be it.” If he could see his mother’s face just one more time he would, even if it was only his own made up face in a mirror.  
  
Keith studied him a long moment and then nodded. “All right.” He took the wig back off Lance’s head and started swiping primer across his face and down his throat.  
  
“How do you know so much about these things?” Lance asked as he obligingly held his chin up and allowed his face to be tilted this way and that. He had intended on applying his own makeup, but Keith had insisted during the planning session that just amping up his omega male look was not going to accomplish what they were trying to do today. Keith said he knew better how to hide the angle of his jaw, the length of his chin and his Adam’s apple.  
  
“Keith? Are you a queen?”  
  
Keith’s lips thinned. He kept his gaze on Lance’s face without meeting his eyes while working in the primer. “I could have been.” He sorted through the makeup bags and then held up two different contour kits on either side of Lance’s face. “I had a drag mother, but we got separated.” He picked the stage kit that Matt packed but took out his own blending sponges.  
  
“What happened?”  
  
Keith began applying contour. “My stepfather found out, we had to move, it was this whole big thing.” He dampened a blending sponge with a spritzer of rose water from his own kit and started tapping in the contour. “Now shut up and let me finish painting your mug.”  
  
Lance tried to hold still as Keith continued to apply makeup with firm but gentle hands. He presented himself as a WYSIWYG kind of guy, but he was layered like an onion. Lance hoped he trusted him enough to tell him the rest of the story someday. He got his question about the fingernails answered when Keith produced a bottle of pale pink polish and gave his nails a quick coat while waiting for his concealer to set.  
  
Keith finished the makeup and helped Lance put the wig back on and secure it and trim the lace. Then he styled the bangs at a slant across his forehead, with side pieces curling around his neck helping to further disguise his Adam’s apple and hide the fading scar over his primary scent gland. He applied brow pencil to make Lance’s eyebrows a better match to the wig and stepped back to let him see the transformation.  
  
Lance stared at his reflection in the highboy mirror. He looked a lot like his mother, except for his eyes. Keith had put white liner in his waterline and applied peach eyeshadow, navy blue liner and false lashes to make his blue eyes pop. Mamá’s eyes had been bright brown like coffee beans. It was a chimerical feeling, seeing his mother’s visage with his own eyes staring out of it.  
  
“You gotta pick a name,” Keith said.  
  
“What?” Lance turned to him distractedly.  
  
Keith stared back at him solemnly. “In case somebody asks. You need a name.”  
  
“What’s yours?” Lance asked without thinking, then winced. Foot, meet mouth.  
  
Keith crossed his arms and looked to the left. “Kira Aqueera.”  
  
“Dude that’s awesome!” Lance bounced and was momentarily delighted to discover the boobies bounced with him. He did a little Pat Benatar shimmy. They jiggled.  
  
“Lance, stop playing with your boobs!” Keith sounded exasperated. “You also need to soften your vocal tone. Your natural pitch is alright though. But seriously, what’s your name?”  
  
“Lorenzo,” he said, smoothing down his pretty dress. “Lorenzo is my name, but I can’t use that.”  
  
Keith stepped closer and put a hand on his shoulder. “It doesn’t have to be anything related to your past. Right now, you can call yourself anything you like.”  
  
“Except Lorenzo.”  
  
“The name Lorenzo suits you,” Keith smiled tightly, “but even if using your real name wasn’t dangerous, you’d still need a name that matches your disguise.”  
  
He thought about it a moment, and then he remembered there was one parent he hadn’t paid tribute to yet, and his resolve returned like a kindled fire. They could both live on through him.  
  
He tried on a softer tone. “My name is Freda Valdés.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Shiro took another extra strength aspirin. He was getting close to his safe limit and wondered if this dose would get him through the rest of the day.  
  
It wasn’t easy taking on physical rehabilitation for a friend. Setbacks were inevitable when treating a patient with brain injuries, but when it was a friend it was very difficult to avoid taking it personally. Lance had been doing so well, though. He still couldn’t interact much verbally, but he’d figured out how to communicate through Morse code, to a point. His breakthrough in physical ability to express himself had revealed a problem with anomia, but they’d been working on that using books Lance had enjoyed before the accident.  
  
They’d had great success at it, too. At least until the other day, when Shiro had come back from checking on Mr. Slav to find Lance regressing. When Shiro had tried to find out what was wrong, Lance could only tap out that a bad man was standing over him and kept repeating the phrase over and over. Since there was nobody standing over Lance except Shiro, he couldn’t help but feel discouraged. He was trying not to feel offended. He knew Lance didn’t mean it personally. He probably didn’t even know what he was saying.  
  
Now Florina Marin was pushing him to find a Batman movie, insisting that Lance had told her he wanted to watch one. He appreciated the volunteer’s dedication, but he really wished she’d stop trying to talk to his patients when he wasn’t there to mediate. His other patient Mr. Slav had become convinced that she had broken his mother’s back by stepping on the ‘crack’ between the tiled hall and his carpeted room, and Shiro had to arrange a video chat with his mother in a nursing home in Long Beach to convince him she was fine. In fact, it was during that misadventure that Lance’s setback had somehow occurred.  
  
Thank every star in the sky for Pleasance Delph. She promised if there was a Batman video to be found in the day room’s ‘library’ of mostly donated media, she would find it, and he believed if anyone could do it, it was her. Shiro turned the corner in the hall to get back to the elevator and stopped dead in his tracks, reaching out to clutch the safety rail affixed to the wall.  
  
His flesh broke out in goosebumps. There was a ghost standing before him.  
  
“Lor-”  
  
“Freda,” she said in a voice that was whiskey over velvet. “Freda Valdés. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person, Lorenzo spoke of you highly.”  
  
Lorenzo. Shiro let go of the safety rail and stepped closer to the phantom of his friend’s late wife. Once over his initial shock, he saw the differences. The stronger red tone in the hair. The narrower hips. But most particularly, the blue eyes that belonged to someone he’d only recently found out was still among the living.  
  
“You’re here.” A rush of irritated relief flowed through him.  
  
‘Freda’ cocked her head at him. “Of course I am. I told you on the phone that I would be.”  
  
“Yeah, but -” Shiro took another step closer and sniffed. He knew others smelled saffron on Lorenzo, but he’d always smelled like kukicha to Shiro. He wasn’t smelling that now. Instead he was catching a strong whiff of lilies, but not around the glands in an expanding halo like Lorenzo usually carried his scent. Instead it seemed to be coming from the clothes? “You smell weird.”  
  
The girl in the peach dress narrowed her eyes and pursed her rouged lips, standing with her hands on her cocked hips and yep, that pose was one hundred percent the Lorenzo he remembered before everything had gone to shit for the McClain family. The last time Shiro had seen Lorenzo, he had been... subdued didn’t seem strong enough a word. He had been mannered and serious to a fault. On Lorenzo, that should have been a red flag, he realized that now, but at the time Shiro had only thought he must have been growing into his role as a proper society spouse.  
  
“Rude!” huffed the girl, eradicating any remaining doubt in Shiro’s mind that this really was Lorenzo in disguise.  
  
Someone else snorted out a laugh from close by. Shiro cut his eyes to the side to see a young man strolling up to join them in the hall and had to do a double take. Holy hot guy, Batman. The guy in question was like a curl of smoke blown into a human frame.  
  
“Shiro this is my friend Keith, he helped me make it out here today. Keith, this is Shiro, Lance McClain Senior’s nurse and an old family friend.”  
  
Senior?  
  
“Hi,” Keith put out his right hand, and Shiro was so enraptured by his big blue-grey eyes that he unthinkingly met the handshake with his prosthetic.  
  
“Um, hi.”  
  
If Keith was put off by the feel of a bionic metal grip, it didn’t show on his face. He smiled in a friendly way and disengaged from the handshake without comment. Such a pretty smile, glowing like embers. Such a pretty face, framed by wisps of soot black hair. Up close he smelled like palo santo. It was hard to tell what dynamic he was, the scent was so teasingly faint. Shiro wasn’t much sure he cared about that. He just wanted to dance through Keith’s scent trail like a celebrant.  
  
“You know, it would probably be a lot safer to continue this conversation in Dad’s room.”  
  
Even though Shiro knew it was Lorenzo, it was still jarring to hear his voice coming out of a body that looked so much like Lore. That body was presently leaning against the wall in an unladylike manner.  
  
“Freda, your posture is atrocious!” Keith scolded.  
  
Lorenzo shoved himself off the wall so fast that he wobbled on his heels a moment, then he pulled his shoulders back and looked composed again. “Shall we?” he said, whiskey voice restored.  
  
“Yes, let’s get you out of the public eye before you blow your own cover,” Keith agreed, looking around to make sure they hadn’t been witnessed.  
  
“Follow me,” Shiro said, leading them onward to the elevator.  
  
He’d have to call Pleasance from Lance’s room to let her know to start whatever movie she’d found without him. He wanted to be the first one into the room, to warn Lance before he caught sight of his son made up to so resemble his wife. He wanted to know what in the cosmos had been going on with Lorenzo that he’d had to go to such lengths as to fake his own death, so that he then had to resort to elaborate disguises to visit his father. Shiro hoped this reunion would help his friend, not set him back further.  
  
Was it also too much to hope that Keith was single?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> round ligament of uterus - Women have this in the inguinal canal, its purpose is to support the uterus as it stretches to hold a baby. Both genders have the inguinal canal, but in men they are larger. It would make sense for a male omega to also have a round ligament of uterus, since they carry children they would need it.


	11. Making Connections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance visits with his dad and makes a discovery. Sendak uses an innocent girl's infatuation to machinate. Keith gets coffee and a flashback.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for the kudos, and thank you figandmelon for the comment! To answer your question, I started the first draft between seasons 5 and 6, so maybe five months? Give or take a week or two.
> 
> Minor spoiler: this chapter marks a point where the plot begins to seriously diverge from the original, although a lot of things that took place in the original will still take place in this fic.

 

Lance waited impatiently in the hall while Shiro said whatever it was he was saying to Dad inside the second-floor private room. Probably delivering a warning of how he was dressed. His stomach was a knot, his breathing quickened with anticipation. He hadn’t seen Dad since he’d helped move him months ago, and that almost didn’t count because Dad had been barely conscious enough to blink one for yes and two for no at the time.  
  
“Calm down,” Keith said softly from the other side of the doorframe. “Count your breaths. You’ll sweat through the blocker if you don’t get control of yourself.”  
  
Lance breathed in through the nose, out through the mouth. He felt his heartbeat settling.  
  
“Thanks Keith.”  
  
“De nada.”  
  
Lance opened his eyes. Keith was grinning, eyes agleam with something that Lance would have called excitement, except he’d never seen that emotion on Keith before, so he wasn’t totally sure.  
  
“Hey, is Shiro single, do you know?”  
  
Lance smiled back. Definitely excitement then. “Yup. Sure is.”  
  
“Do you think…” Keith’s grin faltered a bit. “Would he like…”  
  
“Keith, Shiro’s pan.”  
  
Keith’s eyes widened, then he smirked at Lance. “So yes, is what you’re saying.”  
  
There was no smartass like a smartass with a good memory. Lance rolled his eyes.  
  
“Yes, and he was definitely checking you out.”  
  
Lance remembered the signs of Shiro being attracted to somebody. The lean in, the dopey half-smile. Once upon another city and another lifetime ago, he’d been part of a high school community service group assigned to a hospital where he’d been a witness to Shiro’s unrequited crush on Dr. Ulhaz. The reserved physiatrist never could seem to see Shiro as a sexual being, despite Shiro going overboard with the spandex fashion scrubs. Instead, Shiro had gotten the attention of everybody but Dr. Ulhaz, who remained serenely oblivious while a secret admirer brouhaha broke out among the staff at the hospital’s inpatient rehabilitation center.  
  
“He’s also more tender-hearted than he likes to let on,” Lance added.  
  
“I would never break his heart.” Keith dropped the smirk, his features smoothed out in earnestness.  
  
Lance believed him.  
  
The door opened and Shiro leaned on the jamb. His spicy-sugar Katsura leaf scent was sometimes misidentified by those with less sensitive noses, but Lance had made him as alpha from the moment he’d met him, when he’d come over to the house to thank Dad for risking his license in the airlift that saved Shiro’s life. There was something about alpha scents that always demanded attention, a stronger roll of aroma to the back of the throat. Shiro’s scent, for all that it was sweet, had that quality. More than that though, Shiro had the protective aura that was supposedly the hallmark of an alpha, and he had it in spades.  
  
“I tried to explain what was going on, and I think he understood me, but don’t be shocked if he still has trouble with it,” Shiro said. “He has some language expression issues that we’re still working on.”  
  
“Thanks, Shiro.” Lance felt tears threatening the glue on his fake lashes. Now one good turn deserved another. “Hey, maybe you could do me another favor and take Keith out for a cup of coffee? He drove all night, he’s got to be feeling it.”  
  
“I… sure… I’d love to.” Shiro blushed high on his cheekbones.  
  
“Great!” Keith grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the hall. “See you in an hour or two Freda!”  
  
Lance watched them disappear around the corner, smiling softly before easing inside the room and quietly shutting the door behind him. He stood for a moment in the ingress next to the doorway for the accessible shower, heart pounding. He could see Dad’s feet under a woven cotton blanket, sunshine streaming in over his bed from the window on the far wall. The pale peach wallpaper was covered in pictures of a family of three.  
  
Lance bit his lip, felt and tasted the wax of lipstick. He closed his eyes, breathed deep, and sang with his own voice.  
  
♬  “Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah, some call me the gangster of love.”  ♬  
  
The feet under the blanket started to wiggle fitfully. Dad crooned out something that sounded like “Joon!” Lance felt tears prickle the corners of his eyes again. Dad was trying to say ‘Junior.’ It had been an inside joke between them even before the fake driver’s license.  
  
 ♬ “Some people call me Maurice ‘cause I speak of the pompatus of love.”  ♬  
  
Lance moved over to Dad’s bedside, tears falling freely now, cutting through Keith’s superior makeup job. “I know what that means now Dad!” He sniffled and thought of a tiger-eyed man refusing to walk away when that would have been the easier choice. “I know what the pompatus of love means.”  
  
Gingerly, he sat down on Dad’s bed and reached for his hand under the covers. Dad was so thin. Lance gave his bony hand a squeeze, and Dad squeezed back  
  
“Joon?” Dad’s eyes searched Lance’s features, his own face as pale as whey.  
  
“It’s me, Dad.” Lance pulled his bangs straight back to show the lace grid adhered to his temples where Keith had left some intact. They were borrowing this wig, after all. “I’m in a disguise.” Lance laughed. It ended on a sob. “I messed up big time, Dad. You always told me not to rush a courtship, and you were right. You’re always right. And it kept me away for so long. I’m so sorry.”  
  
“Joon.” Dad pulled on the hand that was still holding onto his. “Baa mun.”  
  
“I guess I was kind of like Batman, huh? Or like you.” Lance let go of the wig’s fringe and smoothed Dad’s hair back from his forehead. It was still thick and chocolate brown, a lot like his own real hair. “I’m using the name you gave me. I hope you don’t mind.”  
  
“Baa mun.” Dad pulled insistently on his other hand, raising it to his neck where bronze glinted dully in the sunbeam slanting across the covers.  
  
“What’s this?” But deep-down Lance knew what it was before he even folded back Dad’s blue pajama top collar.  
  
It was Mamá’s locket.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Sendak loosened another button on his shirt collar. He was going without the tie today. Nobody else in this infernal place was wearing one, so he didn’t see any reason why he should. He took the Samsung Galaxy supplied by the firm out of his pocket and checked his text messages again. Haxus was supposed to get back to him regarding Shirogane’s schedule, and he didn’t have Sendak’s personal cell phone number. Or at least, he shouldn’t have it. Sendak found an urgent text waiting from an Enos Hicks. He scrolled through the list twice before he remembered that Enos was Haxus.

  * _Honerva wants to know where you are._



  
Naturally. She always liked to keep close tabs on the lawyers in her stable.

  * _That is none of her concern, Enos. Where is Shirogane?_



  
He was done lurking about waiting for the man to randomly show up in his path. He wanted this confrontation over with so that he could get on with collecting his omega.  
  
He needed his omega.

  * _Honerva is pulling me off your case. I have other urgent matters that require my attention._ _Good luck with your quest._



  
What the devil?

  * _Enos, this is not remotely amusing._



  
Minutes passed with no response from Haxus. Sendak considered that perhaps he should have stopped calling the man Enos if he wanted his help, then discarded that consideration as pointless. Haxus knew he would be compensated well for assisting Sendak, all he needed to do was what he was told when he was told to do it, and if he couldn’t do that then he could submit to being called by a name he hated enough to hack into government systems to change it.  
  
How did his name get changed to Enos in the company contacts list anyway? What was Honerva conscripting him for? He wasn’t an investigator she preferred to use, as his methods didn’t produce anything that was admissible in pre-trial discovery.

  * _Sendak, call me at once. We need to talk._



  
Think of the devil and she texts him. Oh, damn it to hell, now she was calling him. Sendak shut down the phone and secreted it in a pocket inside his blazer. He let himself into the air-conditioned lobby and strode purposefully past the visitor information desk, acting like he belonged there. Acting like he belonged was the best way to be permitted into places where he technically should have been challenged for valid I.D. on entry. It was how he’d gotten into the symposium where he’d met his omega.  
  
“Shiro’s not here yet!”  
  
Sendak slowed his stride to a leisurely stroll. Two teenaged betas in red-striped uniforms were arguing near the hall intersection.  
  
“You need to lay off the man, you’re going to give him an ulcer!”  
  
One of the girls was a winsome redhead, the other sported that metallic grey hair color that was supposed to be fashionable, though Sendak could not for the life of him fathom why. The salon that groomed Laurel’s hair had once asked Sendak for permission to give his omega streaks of it, claiming it would bring out his eyes. Silverlights, they’d called it, as if that made it magical instead of outlandish. Sendak had categorically refused.  
  
“But it was Mr. McClain who wanted to watch Batman in the first place!”  
  
“It’s visiting hours and you can’t always predict who’s going to show up.”  
  
Sendak stopped and leaned on the wall, took the Samsung back out of his pocket and swiped at the blank screen pretending to check messages.  
  
“This is so not fair!”  
  
“Just come watch _Batman & Robin_ with us, Florina. You’re not his type anyway.”  
  
“You don’t know anything!”  
  
“I know he left the building with a cute guy a few minutes ago, and they were acting super cozy together.”  
  
“Liar!” The redhead flounced off around the corner.  
  
“Yeah, I’m a total fabulist,” the grey-haired one muttered stalking off in the opposite direction.  
  
Red crept into Sendak’s vision like a haze of blood. He couldn’t have. His own omega, betray him in such a tawdry manner? There was no way he had left the life of luxury that Sendak had provided so that he could take up with a one-armed nurse! Sendak simply could not accept it. His feet were moving before he’d consciously given them the command, carrying him into the hall intersection.  
  
He spun in place to look down all four hallways. There was no longer any sign of the grey-haired girl. At the end of the fourth hallway, a banner of red hair streamed out behind the other candy striper as she disappeared into a stairwell. Sendak just barely managed to tamp down the instinct to run full out in pursuit as he jogged in the direction she had gone. He knew that sudden aggressive action in a place like this could flag gesture detectors on the security cams, and he had no desire to be detained on suspicion of inchoate rut but he must not lose her. He reached the door and tore it open.  
  
The red-haired girl looked up as he charged in the doorway, her face pink and damp from tears. She had sat herself down on the wheelchair lift for a good cry.  
  
“Pardon me.” Think fast, Sadak. “I’m late for a meeting with a nurse practitioner to find out if he can add my mother to his patient caseload.” Don’t lay it on too thick. “I would hate to miss my chance to have Mr. Shirogane work with her. I hear he’s the best.”  
  
The girl – Florina? – burst into fresh tears. Sendak sat on the stairs beside her and tried not to think of the dust that was undoubtedly encrusting itself into his merino wool slacks. “There, there,” he said and patted her slim shoulder. She smelled like saltwater taffy. “It can’t be all that bad, can it?”  
  
“He’s gone!” the girl wailed. “Shiro’s gone! With a cute boy!”  
  
“Now surely there must be some misunderstanding.” Something ineffable thrummed with the blood beating beneath his skin. “Just because the boy is attractive does not mean there is anything romantic going on with – did you say Shiro?” Act surprised. “As in Shirogane?”  
  
Florina was starting to get herself under control. She withdrew a travel pack of tissues from a cargo pocket on her pants to blow her nose. “Yes,” she wheezed into the tissue. “He’s gorgeous and wonderful and Pleasance is always right about these things, and I hate that she’s always right!”  
  
Pleasance must be the grey-haired girl. Not that it necessarily mattered to put a name to the hair. Hopefully he could conclude his business with Florina. She seemed much more tractable, if a bit single-minded.  
  
“I’m sure your friend is quite sensible about many things, but nobody is right all of the time. Perhaps I can be of some assistance and feel him out for you about this mysterious boy? It’s not as if I don’t have to speak with him anyway.”  
  
Florina favored him with a sloe-eyed glance above her tissue. “You would do that for me?” Her voice was rendered nasal by the press of her hands.  
  
“Of course,” Sendak lied smoothly. “Just advise me on where I might find Mr. Shirogane this time of day. Perhaps I can wait in a room with one of his current patients?”  
  
Florina sniffled. “I’ll show you where his assigned parking spot is. That’s where he’ll be when he gets back.”  
  
It was not ideal, but Sendak would adjust. If the mystery boy sharing an outing with Shirogane turned out to be Laurel, he would unleash hell on them both.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Shiro watched in fascination as Keith took a long draw of his coconut milk latte and came away with foam on his upper lip and the tip of his nose. It was so damn cute. Keith looked up, smoky eyes dreamy from pleasure, and that was... that was beyond cute. That was a galaxy away from cute.  
  
Keith smiled at Shiro’s staring. “I’ve got some on my face, don’t I?”  
  
Shiro smiled back, tapping his nose with a bionic finger and pointing with a natural one. “You’ve got it on the nose.”  
  
Keith laughed and swiped at his nose with a paper napkin.  
  
“You’ve got some just there too.” Shiro touched a natural finger pad to the bow of his own mouth.  
  
Keith wiped his lips, eyes fixed on Shiro’s finger as it tumbled down his lower lip on a path back to a glass of cold dark brew on the table between them.  
  
Shiro leaned back and enjoyed a sip of his iced black coffee. He frequented this place because it was the closest café to the center that had their own Kyoto cold brew tower. He was a black coffee aficionado and found this brewing method to be unrivaled in the complexity it could draw out of even the humblest arabica bean. Shiro liked complexity and taking the proper care with things. It was part of what had drawn him to nursing after the training accident that scuttled his ROTC career path.  
  
It was part of what was drawing him to Keith. His scent, which had begun to unfurl in the cab of the Yukon, was as complex as a matured perfume. He put on a stoic mask, yet underneath it Shiro sensed that he needed taken care of. He may have known Keith for less than a day but he was already sure that he’d be more than happy to take that on.  
  
The guitar riff from “Back in Black” suddenly rang from the phone holster attached to Shiro’s belt. Sven Holgersson? He called periodically to check on Lance, but could his timing possibly be any worse?  
  
“You gonna answer that?” Keith’s eyes presented a challenge, a dare to be ‘that guy’ who interrupted a social engagement to be oh-so-very-important by taking a phone call.  
  
“No,” Shiro said. He took the phone out of the holster to put it on silent mode. “Whatever that’s about can wait. Right now, I want to be here with you.”  
  
Keith’s smile was worth whatever cross words Sven might have for him later.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance unraveled the contents of the locket, which lay heavy in his hand, trying to comprehend what he was seeing. Two tiny scrolls filled with cramped handwriting in Spanish had been carefully rolled and wrapped in cellophane before being sealed inside the palm-sized locket. The older of the two was inked on a ragged scrap of cloth, the newer on a page torn out of one of the all-weather notebooks Dad used to keep on the Cessna.  
  
They were both from Mamá. Based on the widening of Dad’s eyes when he’d withdrawn them from the crinkled wrapping, Lance gathered he’d known about the older one but not the new one. The words swam before Lance’s teary view as he read the tale told in two separate missives nearly two decades apart.  
  
He had not been conceived in violence as he’d feared, but he had been born of a lie. Drago Bosque Bocar was a handsome charmer from a politically influential family in Santiago de Cuba who had seduced his mother, misled her into believing he would marry her, when all the while he had been engaged in a formal courtship with an alpha girl from the powerful Merlo family in Palma Soriano.  
  
Worse than that, Mamá wasn’t even the only omega he was seeing on the side. Female omegas, being capable of both spontaneous and induced ovulation, were the most fertile child bearers in the human race, and Bocar had been using them, and his prodigious sex drive, for private enterprise. Apparently, Lance had a lot of half-siblings out there he’d never known about. Rumors had begun to circulate across the province about ‘BoBo’s bastards.’ The barrio gossipmongers were saying that the female children had already been promised for bride wealth and that the boys would go too if they should present as omega. Mamá suspected she was pregnant by that point. She ran.  
  
Mamá had a great aunt in Matanzas Province who needed help operating her casa particular after her son followed a job to another town. Tía abuela Hyria agreed to let Mamá stay in the property’s casita in exchange for her assistance. There she met Manfredo, the supplier who brought dry goods up from Colón to serve to the guests, and they fell in love. Mamá dared not marry him before a notary. She would not risk Bocar tracking her down and taking her child. Instead, they sealed the bond with a claiming mark on Lover’s Day. Lance’s hazy memory of a radio waltz had been of that day.  
  
Mamá suffered a terrible backlash through the claim mark when Manfredo died in a car crash on the motorway during a supply run. She had collapsed and been taken to the nearest hospital, but it was too late to save the fetus she was carrying. The doctor who examined her feared she might have sustained permanent damage to her uterus. Her hospital records found their way to Bocar’s attention and they included the notation that she had given birth prior to her miscarriage. He sent an emissary to assess the situation and find out the gender of the child. Mamá sent the emissary away, declining any assistance with raising her son, but she had made sure Bocar’s lackey first knew that her child was a boy.  
  
Lance remembered bits and pieces of that visit. An older beta woman he’d never met before being permitted to assist his mother with bathing him and getting him ready for bed, the beta’s stern demeanor as she gave him water to drink from a paper cup. It was the first time he had ever seen a paper cup. Now he knew this woman had inserted herself into their routine to gain firsthand knowledge of his primary gender and obtain a sample of his DNA for confirmation of his paternity.  
  
Mamá had permitted it because she knew it would buy her some time if Bocar got word she had a boy. It took time for secondary gender to become evident, and a beta or alpha boy couldn’t make Bocar any money as a bride. Even the DNA test wouldn’t prove conclusive on the dynamic of a child younger than nine years-old. Mamá had no intention of waiting long enough to see if Lorenzo presented as omega or not. She had begun planning their escape before the emissary’s vehicle was even out of sight of the main house.  
  
The second scroll was addressed as much to Lore’s husband as it was to her son. Lance read it out loud for Dad. Mamá had avoided taking the claim mark with her husband because she had experienced so much pain when she lost Manfredo that she didn’t know if she was strong enough to face such a thing again, especially knowing Dad’s daredevil ways as she did. She deeply regretted that choice and wanted them both to know that she loved them, and that she hoped for another chance to tell them so in person.  
  
She had taken camping supplies and a kayak out to Ragged Key #1 and had been eating the starch from the green roots of red mangroves while trying to stay out of sight of the yachts arriving and leaving from Boca Chita Key. She hid from Bocar because she was afraid he would bite to gain progenitor rights over her son. She feared he had connections to crime syndicates in Miami who might be willing to help him ambush her or kidnap her husband to gain leverage.  
  
Lance remembered when Mamá had disappeared, how Dad had panicked. He had called St. Julian’s begging him to stay locked in his dorm room or in the company of trusted friends and promised he would find Mamá. Darrell told him later that Dad took the Cessna out for hours and hours every day searching from the air, until the day he’d ignored a gale warning. Dad was a tremendous pilot, but the weather and his fatigue had been his undoing when he’d tried to land that night.  
  
Mamá had camped on the tiny island for days without being spotted but began to worry that she would have to move locations. The longer she stayed in one place, the greater the chances of discovery, and if a tropical depression rolled through then she would be extremely vulnerable. With the rainy season in full swing she thought she might be able to get away with hiding out in Stiltsville for awhile.  
  
There was no more writing after that. Mamá’s body had been found floating near the dock at the Barnacle Historic State Park three days after Dad’s accident. Sven had collected her personal effects from the morgue and taken the locket to Dad’s hospital room for the nurses to use in sensory stimulation therapy, thinking only that it might jog his consciousness, never suspecting that anything was hidden inside.  
  
“Joon.” Dad’s fingers trembled on Lance’s arm. “Baa mun.”  
  
“Yes, he is a bad man, isn’t he?” Lance fervently wished he had no biological connection to Drago Bosque Bocar. He would forever view Dad as his true father, but he would have given anything in that moment for Manfredo to have been his natural father.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Keith’s father would have a conniption fit if he knew where he was right now. Well, the man was not really his father anymore. He’d adopted Keith when he was a baby and Keith had unadopted himself as soon as he was able. He had no idea what his real father would have thought. He had died before Keith was born.  
  
His mother, on the other hand, would be happy for him, whenever he got around to telling her. Perplexed, but happy. She never had understood his attraction to other alpha males, but she’d accepted it with the same temperance of character with which she’d decided she’d rather start over as a single mother than remain married to the man her family had set her up with at age seventeen after they’d discovered her pregnancy.  
  
“Comfy?” Shiro smiled down at Keith warmly with his bionic hand on the passenger side door. That door was lifted like a gull’s wing. The front passenger’s seat had a detachable base to make way for a wheelchair if Shiro had a need to transport someone riding in one.  
  
Keith gave an experimental wiggle. The seat was secure, and Shiro’s eyes were trained right where he wanted them. “Very comfy.”  
  
Extempore vamping opportunities aside, Keith was impressed with Shiro’s ride, which was tricked out with adaptive features. More specifically, he was impressed by the mind that had thought to equip the SUV in ways that were not just for his own ease of use but for the safety and comfort of his passengers as well.  
  
“Glad to hear it.” Shiro carefully shut the door and went around to the driver’s side. His steering wheel had a special grip to accommodate his bionic hand, and in the double DIN dash where most vehicles in this caliber would have a fancy navigation system installed, Shiro’s had a secondary control panel in case his hand locked up while he was driving. “Maybe I should call Lorenzo to let him know we’re on the way back,” Shiro said as he buckled in.  
  
Thoughtful to a T.  
  
“Let me help you with that.” Keith helped himself to Shiro’s phone holster, withdrawing the phone and making sure to brush him from hip to ribs with the back of his hand in the process. The man’s obliques were cut like a statue of a Greek god.  
  
“Thanks.” Shiro’s grey eyes sizzled like Texas asphalt in the heart of summer as he accepted the phone that he could have probably reached himself without much trouble.  
  
What could he say? Keith liked pushing the envelope.  
  
Shiro took the phone off silent and the cab of the SUV was immediately filled with the sounds of AC/DC. “Wow, he’s still calling? Guess it must be important after all. Do you mind if I take this?”  
  
It had been sweet of Shiro to abstain in the café, and it was doubly sweet of him to ask now. “Go ahead,” Keith said. If this guy was still calling him it must be urgent.  
  
Shiro pressed send and placed the phone to his ear. “Sven, where’s the fire? What?! Wait a minute, I need to put you on speaker, I’m driving.” He turned to Keith and placed a finger over his lips in the ‘hush’ signal before putting the phone on speaker.  
  
_“-came to my office dead set on finding you, be careful Shiro,”_ said a man with a strong European accent. _“He tried to sell Lance’s organs to the highest bidder, I could not believe it! If he cannot succeed at that, then he will try to take the house. I did not tell him you are the trustee, but I expect he will find out.”_  
  
“Thanks for the warning Sven.” Shiro’s face and voice were flinty. “I don’t suppose you have a picture of Sendak, so I can tell the staff at work to watch out for him? I never met the guy, so I have no idea what he looks like.”  
  
_“That’s right, you were not at the wedding. I have a picture. It is a few years old, but his appearance has not changed. Prepare yourself, Shiro, herregud! Lorenzo is in the picture as well.”_  
  
Sven sent the picture through in a text message, and there was Lance, or rather Lorenzo (Keith was going to need an adjustment period if Lance decided to go back to that name) in a bridal jumpsuit made with illusion lace that barely covered his modesty, and a crown of round white flowers over his glossy hair. The dewy glow of youth countervailed the sober expression on his face. He’d been a real stunner, and might be yet again once he fully recovered his health. There was no sign of any wedding party in what was clearly a professionally posed photograph. Traditionally alpha/omega marriage rites did not have attendants, but modern alpha/omega wedding ceremonies often included them anyway.  
  
Standing next to Lance was a strapping man in a deep burgundy tuxedo with a scoop-necked acid yellow waistcoat. He was handsome in an almost absurdly masculine way, with prominent bone structure and strong facial features, and a winter phenotype that went well with the colors he’d chosen for his wedding raiment. It seemed odd to Keith for the groom of all people to try to upstage the bride, but that might have just been the Texas in him assuming that wedding planners everywhere expected the bride to be the center of attention and worked to achieve that end. There was something covertly aggressive in the groom’s smile that made Keith’s skin crawl to look at it, but he could see how the guy would be very attractive to someone who had not been previously exposed to the entitled aggression some alphas and beta males could display.  
  
Keith had not been shielded from it. Nobody had expected his presentation to turn out the way it had, so nobody had thought to make sure he had an escort to places where omegas traditionally needed one. This had ultimately led to both the most embarrassing moment of Keith’s life and the best thing that had happened to him up ‘til that point: his mother finding out about it firsthand and getting him the scent blockers. And that had inadvertently led to another best-thing-that-had-ever-happened-to-Keith moment, which was meeting Kolivia van Marabou.  
  
Keith had gone into the pharmacy by himself to get his prescription filled on that particular day, and gotten hassled by assholes as usually happened in certain places when his mother wasn’t there to growl down anyone who dared harass her son. He bore the verbal taunts with his usual stoicism, grateful that at least they mistook him for a late presenter because they couldn’t catch his scent. It was always worse when they smelled omega on him and he was alone. Then a six foot four lady in a long blonde braid and a kick-ass split skirt and boots combo marched right up to him and said, “Honey are you ready to be a BAMF?”  
  
Thus began his education with the Boa Marabou Femmes, but they didn’t have enough time together. The divorce took him away from everyone and everything he’d known, a necessity in his mother’s estimation because her soon-to-be-ex-husband would have done everything he could to interfere with their right to the pursuit of happiness if they’d stayed. It hurt for a long time, the thought of going back to square one, especially after the humiliating way his fa- that asshole had literally removed him from his hometown drag scene, but working on Freda’s makeup today hadn’t smarted so much. Maybe he was ready to try again.  
  
Shiro concluded his conversation with Sven and took his phone off speaker to put through another call. “Hey Sparks – yeah, I’m sorry I missed it. Fantastic.” He rolled his eyes at whatever Sparks said. “Listen, could you patch me through to Lance’s room? I know, I know. Thanks, I owe you.” While he waited for the connection he looked sideways and met and held Keith’s gaze, a slow smile illuminating his face.  
  
If he was thinking he couldn’t believe they’d managed to find each other in the middle of all this Sturm und Drang, Keith was right there with him. Shiro had set a new bar for ‘best thing ever’ in Keith’s life.  
  
“Lorenzo! Sorry, _Freda_. Do me a favor, okay? Stay in Lance’s room until we get back. I’ll explain when I get there. Just stay put, please? See you in five.”  
  
Shiro put the vehicle in gear and they enjoyed each other’s company on the short drive back, chatting idly instead of listening to the radio as Shiro skillfully maneuvered them through the lunch-time suburban traffic. They reached the driveway to the NeuroRecovery center faster than Keith would have liked.  
  
As they coasted past the French windows lining the front of the main building, Shiro’s bionic hand squeezed the adaptive grip tight enough that the foam made a creaking noise as it slid against the metal.  
  
Pacing them through the glass like a frustrated lion at the zoo was the man they’d both seen in a photograph minutes before.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> herregud - a flexible interjection used in both Norwegian and Swedish that is synonymous with 'good God.'


	12. Crossed Wires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A confrontation in the parking lot escalates quickly. Shiro finds out something alarming. Honerva is not a woman to be trifled with. Pidge has been a busy bee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos, and thank you Moshpit for the comment. :)

 

Shiro broke out in a clammy sweat the likes of which he hadn’t experienced since that morning Major Harris said “oh shit” during what should have been a routine takeoff. Lorenzo’s ex-mate stalked from window to window watching them as they turned the corner toward the employees-only parking lot. He’d find Shiro’s assigned spot, if he didn’t already know where it was, because Shiro’s name was on it and obviously this guy had no respect for boundaries.  
  
Keith sat in the passenger’s seat next to him with wisps of Lorenzo’s ridiculously potent scent clinging stubbornly to his abundant hair. It had probably not occurred to either of the younger men during their long drive that Lorenzo’s scent had a tendency to get all over everything in his immediate vicinity, like cat fur only harder to brush off.  
  
Shiro gunned the engine and sped past his assigned spot, peeling around another corner and right up in front of an alternate employee entrance. “1179875,” he said, pressing the secondary control to release Keith’s door.  
  
“What?” Keith’s face was ashen.  
  
Shiro wanted to punch Lorenzo’s ex for making Keith look like that. “My door code,” he said. “There’s an employee stairwell inside on the left. Go straight up to Lance’s room and get Lorenzo out of there, and lock Lance’s door behind you. I’ll keep Sendak distracted.”  
  
“No way, I’m not leaving you alone down here with him!” Color returned to Keith’s face in fiery pops of red on his cheeks.  
  
“Keith, you’ve got Lorenzo’s scent on you right now, probably even more than he has on himself. If Sendak catches that on the wind he’s liable to rush you.”  
  
“I don’t care!” Keith looked absolutely ferocious.  
  
Despite the circumstances it was kind of a turn on, if Shiro was being perfectly honest.  
  
“Do you trust me?” It was a hell of a thing to ask, he knew that. They’d only met that morning. Just because they got along like a house on fire didn’t mean Keith had to trust him.  
  
“Yeah.” Keith’s anger deflated, leaving him looking uneasy. “I don’t know why, but I do.”  
  
“Then trust me to keep myself safe. In a best-case scenario, he’s just here to try to talk me into revoking my trustee rights over Lorenzo’s will. He’ll try to intimidate me, but he knows better than to attack me with more than words.” Shiro hoped they were working with a best-case scenario. “Right now, the best way you can help me is by easing my mind that you’re safe, and if you can help me keep Lance and Lorenzo safe too I’ll consider that the cherry on top.”  
  
Keith stared intensely into his eyes for a long moment. “All right, but if you get hurt because of this I’m hunting him down.”  
  
“If it comes to that, I won’t ask you to refrain. Now go, fast as you can.”  
  
Keith streaked to the door lithe as a panther. Shiro watched until he was safely inside before lowering the passenger door, backing out and cruising around the corner to his assigned spot. He took out his mobile and called the switchboard while the SUV’s engine cooled.  
  
_“Hey, did your visitor pick up?”_  
  
“Sparks I’m about to have a confrontation with an uninvited guest. I need you to leave this line open and keep your ears peeled, okay?”  
  
_“Do you need security?”_  
  
“Use your judgment.”  
  
He put the phone back in its holster without hanging up and got out of the car. Sendak immediately came out of the door closest to his parking space and Shiro was glad he’d had the foresight to drop Keith off on the other side of the building. How the hell did Sendak gain access to that door, though? It was also supposed to be for employees only.  
  
“Shirogane?” Sendak asked as he drew near, as if he didn’t already know. “Takashi Shirogane?”  
  
“Yeah, that’s me.” Criminey, the guy was huge. Shiro wasn’t a small alpha by any means, but if he was a brick shithouse then Sendak was the whole damn rest stop.  
  
“I suppose you don’t remember me,” said Sendak, getting right up in Shiro’s personal space and flaring his nostrils trying to catch whatever scents he could. It put Shiro’s hackles up. “It’s understandable since we’ve never met in person.”  
  
“I know who you are,” he said, and was gratified to see Sendak rear back in surprise. “Wedding photos tend to get passed around.”  
  
Sendak’s odd eyes narrowed in an open display of enmity. The proverbial gloves were coming off, then. That suited Shiro fine.  
  
“Then perhaps you can explain to me why you have failed to contact me regarding my omega’s will.” Sendak stood ramrod straight, using his full height to tower over Shiro and make him raise his chin to maintain eye contact. “You are the trustee, are you not?”  
  
Shiro smirked. “I am.” They both knew he didn’t need to explain shit.  
  
“And?” But Sendak was still going to play it out anyway.  
  
“By my count it hasn’t been anywhere close to sixty days since Lorenzo’s death certificate was issued in absentia. That means I still have some time left before I’m obligated to contact you, but hey! You’re here now, problem solved.”  
  
“Our problems most certainly are not solved,” Sendak growled. “Why did Laurel leave the Miami property in trust to a brain-dead man and leave you in charge of that trust?”  
  
“His name is Lorenzo,” Shiro ticked off the reasons with his prosthetic hand, “Lance is not brain-dead and none of your damn business.”  
  
“His name is, did you say?” Sendak’s lips peeled back in a victorious grin and Shiro realized his mistake. "Not was?"  
  
“My deepest apologies.” Shiro tried to make it sound sincere, but it was hard because this guy was rude as hell and his own alpha instincts clamored to repay every bit of it. “Sometimes I forget that he’s gone. I’m sure you know the feeling.”  
  
“I will know the feeling of your windpipe being crushed in my hands if you’ve seduced my omega!”  
  
Then the fucker blitzed him.  
  
“Sparks now would be a good time!”  
  
Shiro ducked out of Sendak’s first tackle attempt and took a glancing blow on his second. It was like being sideswiped by an elephant. He shook the stars out of his eyes and danced out of the way of another lunge. Sendak outweighed him by a good thirty pounds and had reach and rage on his side. Shiro had to use his brains. Getting to cover would be a good plan. The SUV was behind him and the building was in front of him, but he’d have to stop and fiddle with keys or codes either way, giving Sendak plenty of time to try to knock his block off again.  
  
“Hold still, you filthy debaucher!” Sendak made another grab and got a handful of Shiro’s lanyard, tugging on it and giving Shiro a moment of heart-hammering panic before the breakaway part of the lanyard came loose just like it was designed to do and he staggered free.  
  
Sendak’s misunderstanding would be hilarious if not for the fact that he clearly suspected Lorenzo was alive. Shiro had been called to roust the kid out of the backseat of his high school boyfriend’s car on more than one occasion. Forcing teenagers to stop making out was a thankless task if ever there was one, and if he never again had to deal with Lorenzo sassing while trying to cover himself it would be too soon.  
  
There was a right cross suddenly aimed right at his face and Shiro reflexively put up his bionic hand to stop it. He caught the fist in his metal palm, feeling the impact all the way into his shoulder. Shiro sucked in a harsh breath to restore oxygen to his muscles and caught a surge of pungent musk that swarmed up his sinuses.  
  
“Holy fucking shit,” he managed to choke, before Sendak abruptly stepped back, causing Shiro to stumble forward. Sendak pulled back his other arm to deliver a haymaker and Shiro dropped to the asphalt to get out of the way of that punch.  
  
He hit the deck just in time, as two prongs from a stun gun snaked over his head. One of the prongs tangled in the fabric of Sendak’s blazer. Shiro looked up from the asphalt and saw Bijal the orderly holding down the trigger with grim determination.  
  
Sendak roared as the current hit him, ripping off his blazer and booking it across the parking lot in a jerky run.  
  
“You okay Shiro?” Bijal asked as he unclipped his walkie talkie from his chest harness to call in his status.  
  
“You better get the cops on the line,” Shiro replied as he pushed himself up to his feet with a grunt. “That guy is gonna rut.” Then he grit his teeth against the ache in his bones and ran for the door where he’d left Keith.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Keith took the stairs at a sprint, the nose-wrinkling smell of heavy duty disinfectants invading his lungs with each inhale. He burst into the second-floor hall trying to get his bearings. The last time he’d been up here they’d approached from a different landing. Room 203, room 203. Fuck, fuck, fuck.  
  
Room 203, finally! Keith launched through the door like a Nerf bullet, skidding in on the vinyl plank flooring to a surprised Freda sitting on a bed with an older guy who looked a lot like her. What the hell did she do to her makeup, her bottom lashes were laying on her freaking cheeks?  
  
He didn’t have time to read her for it. “We have to get out of here. Right now.”  
  
“Keith what the fuck?” It was Lance’s voice, clotted with tears, that emerged from Freda’s surrealist mess of a face.  
  
“Sendak is downstairs. Shiro’s holding him off. We have to go!” Keith wished they had time to address whatever had happened in the room while he was gone, but the longer they argued, the longer Shiro would be forced to face off with Eegah.  
  
“Baa mun,” moaned the man on the bed as the room filled with the smell of burning sage.  
  
Lance’s scent was bleeding past the blockers.  
  
“Lance.” Keith strode forward and grasped his shoulders. “I can see you’re overwhelmed by something and I can smell you’re scared but pull it together. We have to leave.”  
  
“What about my dad?” Lance’s shoulders shook under Keith’s hands.  
  
“Shiro said to lock the door after us. You being here is probably more dangerous to him right now than anything.” He felt like kind of a heel for pointing that out, but he needed to get Lance moving.  
  
“Okay.” Lance sniffled and kissed his father on the cheek, and then shoved two little scraps of paper in his bra, what the hell? But he joined Keith by the door, so he didn’t question it.  
  
“Let’s go,” Lance said.  
  
Keith led him back the way he’d come, down the stairs and spilling out of the exit into bright sunlight.  
  
“Keith!”  
  
Shiro ran up to them, scrubs filthy from a fall, but alive and uninjured. Keith was sure he’d never felt such relief in all his life.  
  
“Shiro!”  
  
Keith threw himself into Shiro’s arms, breathing in his buñuelo scent. Shiro caught him with a startled laugh.  
  
“I’m glad to see you too, but you’ve got to keep moving. He ran that way.” Shiro waved toward the windbreak at the opposite edge of the parking lot. “He got hit with a stunner, but he’s still mobile and he’s got the smell of rut on him.”  
  
“Does he know I’m alive?” Lance’s ruined eyes were hollow as empty swimming pools in the daylight.  
  
“He suspects.” Shiro’s face tightened with worry. “If you can stay out of scenting distance then all he’ll have is suspicions. You’re in visitors’ parking, right? Let’s stay on the move.”  
  
They hewed tight to the building as they hurried around it and through a breezeway to the visitors’ lot. Police sirens split the air, drawing closer. They hunched low as they wove between rows of cars to get to Keith’s. He let Lance in first, then scrambled around to the driver’s side with Shiro a reassuring presence on his six.  
  
“You’ll call me?” Shiro hung in the open driver’s side window after Keith got in.  
  
“You even have to ask?” And then, because Shiro’s face was right there and Keith’s adrenaline was amped up past the point of restraint, Keith grabbed Shiro by the ears and laid one on him. It was too much teeth and too little time, but it was the best first date kiss Keith had ever had.  
  
Shiro was grinning and flushed when Keith let him go. “Stay safe,” he said.  
  
“You better stay safe too if you ever want to see me naked.”  
  
Shiro’s cheeks turned even rosier as Keith backed out of the parking space. Keith indulged in one last look through the rear view mirror before he burned rubber toward the back of the lot.  
  
“Where are we going?” Lance turned in his seat to look behind them. “The driveway’s back there.”  
  
“Yeah, so is your ex.” Keith cut his eyes to the side, checking the size of the curbs around the lot and the vegetation beyond it. “And the cops. Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”  
  
He had undertaken modifications on his Samurai for more than just a hobby to while away the weekends at Allura’s place. He spotted an area with enough clearance between the trees and smirked. Perfect. He popped the curb and took the little 4x4 off-road.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Sendak caromed through the privacy landscaping, snarling his dissatisfaction. How could it have gone so wrong so fast? He’d had Shirogane dead to rights! Now there were lights and loud noises stoking his temper like a fireplace poker and he was cut off from the building where he’d planned to get his answers. He used the spindly branches of saplings to propel his forward momentum because his legs still weren’t working right after that idiot in the lumpy white uniform had accosted him. He aimed to make it to his rental car before the police discovered it, but his instincts warned him against a direct approach.  
  
Somewhere up ahead an engine grumbled like an irritated lion. Sendak tracked the sound intending to avoid it. Then the wind changed. He caught a noisome whiff of exhaust, but then… he snorted air. Burning herbs.  
  
Laurel!  
  
Adrenaline coursed through his bloodstream, fueling a burst of speed. The engine growl grew louder and soon he spotted red, like a matador’s cape waving between brown branches and green leaves. It was a little four wheeler, maneuvering agilely between the trees, but Sendak had the advantage of not having to be as careful because he was afoot. Grinning like a wolf, he ran.  
  
He tripped over a tree root and went flying, landing hard on his chest. Howling his frustration, he shoved himself up from all fours and spurred himself onward, heedless of the abrasions he was leaving on his hands from contact with pine needles and bark.  
  
He stumbled to the edge of the tree line as the four wheeler broke past it and gained speed, cutting across a dry creek bed and careening onto a service road. He gave a full-throated roar and ran after it, but it was too fast for his shock-weakened legs.  
  
Sendak fell to his knees as the four wheeler disappeared, breathing heavily from the exertion. His omega had escaped retribution, for now. Sendak could no longer risk returning to his hotel room. Haxus refused to help him. Honerva would send her private security goons after him, if she hadn’t already. But it was not over yet.  
  
He had the license plate number from the four wheeler and another hacker who owed him a favor, and this hacker happened to live in Los Angeles.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance gripped the chicken handle with white knuckles, breathing like he’d been running through the trees instead of sitting in a moving vehicle. That alpha roar had killed the last of the scent blockers. The cabin of the Suzuki was awash in the mingled scents of sage and charcoal. The charcoal smell was coming from Keith.  
  
Lance glanced at him sideways. Keith glanced back, face as white as notebook paper.  
  
“No offense man, but your ex is a friggin’ beast.”  
  
Lance laughed. Then, as seemed to be happening an awful lot lately, the laughter turned to wracking sobs. He put his arms around himself trying to contain his disbelief.  
  
“He found me, he found me, oh God, he found me…” He rocked himself, moaning in despair. It felt like the light of his future was receding as he sank into the depths where a gaping maw waited to consume him.  
  
“Hey.” Keith looked over in alarm. “We live miles away from here, he doesn’t know that. He can search this whole town over and never find you here.”  
  
Oh shit, he was upsetting Keith, Shiro would kill him. He was protective as a Rottweiler when he gave his heart to someone. Lance flashed on a mental picture of Shiro barking. He giggled hysterically.  
  
“He’s losing it,” Keith muttered as he snatched his phone off the dashboard cradle and dialed a number with one hand then held the phone to his ear, eyes never leaving the road. “Hey man. Well, it started great and then it went to shit. Lance is… he’s not okay. Is it alright if I bring him over to your place for a little while? Thanks man, you’re the best!”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Shiro plodded down the hall to his office. He had gone to Lance’s room to check on him and calm him down. He had given his statement to the police. He had gotten a replacement security badge and even allowed Cinda the staff nurse to fuss over him. Now he was just looking forward to resting his dogs. Just for a few minutes.  
  
He closed his office door behind him and strode right past the balance ball chair because screw his core muscle fitness. He fell heavily into the reclining executive chair, kicked back and counted his breaths.  
  
Blue light strobed behind his closed eyelids as a Skype incoming call alert beep-bopped, waking up his computer and interrupting his serenity. Shiro debated ignoring it, decided not to. It might be Keith. He reached over and clicked to accept the call.  
  
It was not Keith.  
  
The man framed in the Skype window had black hair combed back from a widow’s peak, serenely attractive features arranged in a serious mien, and most conspicuously to Shiro, a navy blue Coastie uniform.  
  
Shiro sat up slowly in the chair. “Can I help you…?”  
  
_“I’m Special Agent Miranda,”_ the man introduced himself. _“I need to speak with you about Sadak Sendak.”_  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“You didn’t have to do this Hunk.” Lance wiped his eyes before lifting a poke taco out of the giant takeout box Hunk had brought home with him. Keith had made him wash his face and change back into his own clothes as soon as they got in the door, so he was starting to feel a bit more like himself.  
  
“It’s no trouble,” Hunk insisted. “I get an employee discount and it’s my dinner break, and how often do I get to treat my friends?” He paused. “We’re friends, right?”  
  
“Of course we’re friends,” Lance said and then burst into tears.  
  
“Aw, c’mere.” Hunk pulled Lance into a one-armed hug and let him soak his shoulder while rescuing the poke taco with his other hand.  
  
“Shanks Hun, u awshum,” Keith said as he inhaled a taco.  
  
Hunk smiled as he continued to rub Lance’s back. “You’re welcome.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Shiro felt bad about ignoring the incoming call on his mobile because he was pretty sure it really was Keith this time, but this meeting couldn’t wait. He put his phone on silent and strode under the skylight of the community center atrium.  
  
Special Agent Miranda would only reveal that he had tracked Sendak to Garden Grove and followed him here. He refused to divulge any more without a face to face meeting. Shiro had agreed to it because he wanted to know why the hell there hadn’t been any warning that a person of interest was on the premises of the rehab center before that asshole went on a rampage in the parking lot.  
  
A petty officer in CGPD uniform waited at parade rest outside the open door of the meeting room. He was a long way from Petaluma. Shiro presented his photo I.D. and the PO let him proceed inside, closing the door after him.  
  
Miranda stood at the end of a long table in a meeting room that seemed awfully big for just two people. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me on such short notice,” he said.  
  
“Let’s cut to the chase,” Shiro replied as he walked over to the other alpha. “You knew Sendak was hanging around my workplace looking for me, and you knew he was dangerous.”  
  
Miranda didn’t even blink. “We suspected he had come here looking for you. We didn’t know for certain until we heard about it on the police scanner.”  
  
Shiro thought of Keith running for safety and his blood simmered. “Yet you chose not to call me and warn me, why?”  
  
Miranda was either genuinely regretful or an excellent actor. Not even his briny scent wavered. “We didn’t know he was capable of that level of violence.”  
  
That was an interesting choice of phrasing, and not really an answer to his question. “What level of violence did you know him to be capable of?”  
  
Miranda’s brows knit, a small break in his tranquil bearing. “We have reason to believe he was abusing his omega.”  
  
Shiro scratched near the shoulder harness for his prosthetic and stared at the green tile floor to avoid meeting the agent’s eyes. “How did you come to suspect that?” _Don’t think of Lorenzo being alive, don’t think of Lorenzo being alive…_  
  
“The omega’s employer came to us with evidence that he was planning to leave his alpha. In domestic abuse cases, the victim is in the most danger of being killed when they try to leave, so the time and manner of the omega’s disappearance seemed suspicious.”  
  
“Is that why you’re after Sendak?” Shiro risked a glance up and regretted it. The agent was studying him with laser-like focus.  
  
“Partially,” Miranda said. “We think a bride price on the omega was how Sendak allowed himself to be recruited into a human trafficking scheme.”  
  
“What?!”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“This is everything.” Haxus set down the box filled with thumb drives and printouts on Honerva’s desk. “You’ll get me immunity?”  
  
Honerva stared at Haxus for a long moment. Her eyeline was lower than his as she was sitting, and he was standing, but she was still able to incite fear pheromones from him. He stank of fried plastic. It was as gratifying as anything could be in this situation.  
  
“If you turn state’s evidence and absolve the firm of all involvement with Sendak’s extracurricular activities then I’ll ensure that in return you have as much protection as the firm can provide.”  
  
She still could not believe Sendak had risked everything in his life just to bed an omega. He had been a rising star at the firm and could have made it to junior partner. Now she would do everything in her power to make sure he made it to a jail cell. And to think she’d almost brokered a match for him.  
  
It had not just been the firm that her grandmother had helped to found that Sendak had put at risk, although that by itself was bad enough. She thought of her son Lothar, currently away at a prestigious boarding school to prepare him for an Ivy League college and then law school, so that he might follow in his parents’ footsteps and eventually assume his rightful place in the firm. Sendak had nearly stolen his future, and he would pay dearly for that.  
  
Haxus had not been able to uncover the identity of the tipster who had alerted Honerva that Sendak had been using company resources to run his illegal side business, though it was not for lack of trying on his part. If she ever found out who it was, she intended to offer them Haxus’s job.  
  
In the meantime, she had a delicate negotiation with the Feds to embark upon.  
  
“Dismissed, Haxus. I’ll call you when I need you again.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Hunk was cleaning up after dinner and Lance had insisted on helping him, so Keith took it upon himself to make sure the costume items and his own garments were properly stored for the trip home. A text alert on his phone interrupted him as he was refolding his stockings.  
  
It wasn’t Shiro. Keith frowned. He hadn’t been answering his phone and it was starting to worry him. Like, he knew Shiro was probably dealing with a mountain of bureaucratic BS after the chaos they left in their wake, but he couldn’t at least send an emoji?  
  
Keith opened the text, which was from Pidge.

  * _Hey would you get Lance to call my brother? He’s climbin the walls._



  
Keith pulled a face. He didn’t know Matt as well as he knew Pidge, but he thought he knew the guy well enough to guess he’d be levitating to the ceiling after he found out what went down. It would probably be a lot easier for him to take if Lance was standing in front of him safe and sound when he heard about it.  
  
Keith and Pidge had gotten to know each other after sharing social work courses on their interdisciplinary tracks for their respective degrees. They’d been project partners several times and he felt confident they were good enough friends that he could appeal to her for stalling assistance.

  * _Yeah it went FUBAR. Do me a solid and give him these?_



  
Keith sent over all of the pics he’d taken of Freda in her full glory. The little shit had ruined the first few takes doing JoJo poses before finally settling down and posing as befitted the clothes.

  * _These r fucken priceless and what do u mean it went foobar spill now._



  
Keith pursed his lips. He shouldn’t have underestimated her drive to look out for her brother’s emotional well-being. He knew it was down to pack alpha instinct, but that was still kind of an abstract concept for him. How best to put this to make her understand?

  * _Distract him with the pics and call me in five minutes._



  
There. Hopefully that wouldn’t piss her off too much. He listened for the sounds of clinking dishes and conversation coming from the kitchen. Lance and Hunk were yammering about some food competition show. That ought to keep them occupied for a little while longer. Hunk was the champion at calming down flipped-out omegas. He was like, the omega whisperer.  
  
Keith retreated to the guest bathroom, locked the door and turned on the fan, and not a moment too soon because Pidge called him a whole minute early.  
  
_“Keith what the fuck?”_  
  
“Before you go beast mode on me, we’re safe. But it was hairy for a little while there. Lance’s ex found us-”  
  
_“What?!”_    Then Keith heard what sounded like knocking and yelling in Pidge’s immediate vicinity.  
  
“Are you trying to undo my good work and freak out your brother? We’re safe, I told you.”  
  
_“Okay, okay, go on before Matt figures out how to get past my security measures.”_  
  
Keith wasn’t sure he wanted to know what that was about. “So, it turns out the guy had been stalking Shiro, who I think is my new boyfriend-”  
  
_“Stay relevant.”_  
  
“I don’t get a congratulations Keith, well done on nabbing the mad hot man of your dreams?”  
  
_“Congratulations keep talking, my brother got past one booby trap already.”_  
  
Close enough, he’d take it. “We got into the building with no problems and Lance got to visit with his father, but when Shiro and I got back from our date Psycho McGee was waiting outside to talk to him, so Lance and I had to scram.”  
  
_“Well that’s a relief I guess. He didn’t even know Lance was there?”_  
  
“We’re not really sure.”  
  
_“What do you mean you’re not sure?!”_    There was more yelling near wherever Pidge was.  
  
“He chased us out of the parking lot. We’re not sure if it was because he smelled Lance or because of what Shiro said about him going into rut.”  
  
_“Either of those are bad Keith.”_  
  
“I know, believe me. You should’ve heard the roar.” Keith instinctively bared his teeth at the memory. “But we got away and Shiro’s got our backs on the witness end of things.” Though it would be nice to get a phone call to confirm that. “Hunk’s letting us lie low at his place until he has to leave for his next shift. He let me park in his garage in case anybody’s looking for my car. We shouldn’t have any trouble getting back on the road after things chill down.”    
  
_“Sweet Jiminy Christmas.”_   _“Pidge!”_    _“Damn it, gotta go.”_  
  
Well, shit.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally going to have a small cast like the movie, but the Voltron characters tend to be a package deal, so the rest of the paladins were like "no nononono nope, I'm in this too." Then the plot expanded to incorporate them.


	13. Drove All Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Keith make it back, and Lance goes home with Matt. Sendak makes it to Los Angeles. Agent Miranda listens to his intuition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos, you guys are awesome, and thanks to Skriy for the comment. :)

 

“We can be at my place twenty minutes sooner. We can get a snack, a shower and some sleep, and then I can take you home in the morning before my first class.”  
  
They’d left Tolleson in the rear view and were closing in on Phoenix rapidly. Keith’s offer was tempting. They’d been running on Hunk’s cooking and residual stress hormones for more hours than Lance wanted to contemplate. A snack, a shower and some sleep sounded like a little slice of heaven. There was just one thing missing. Or rather, one person.  
  
“I swear it’s totally safe, you can tell Matt that Allura’s security system is,” Keith paused to crack a huge yawn, “it’s super good.”  
  
Wow, Keith was super tired. If he took Lance home then he’d have an extra forty minutes on his clock before he could go to bed, and he had classes in the morning. Lance felt kind of bad. He pulled out his phone.

  * _Hey babe will u be ok if I stay over at Keith’s tonite and see u in the morning? He’s about 2 drop._



  
He knew Matt was on edge. The specific thing he’d been afraid of happening had come to pass: Sadak had shown up and Matt hadn’t been there. Lance had called him from Hunk’s and again from the road to reassure him that he was alright. He wasn’t sure how successful he’d been at allaying his fears.

  * _I’ll come out and pick you up._



  
Probably not all that successful.

  * _ok see u soon._



  
“Go ahead and take your exit Keith, Matt’s coming over to get me.”  
  
“Mmkay.”  
  
They got off on Loop 202. Lance stared at his reflection in the window in an exhausted daze. The darkness outside pressed up against the glass like soft velvet. Seeing Dad, finding out what happened to Mamá ,and Sadak showing up out of nowhere, it was a lot to take in. Lance reached into his hoodie pocket and touched the slips of paper carrying his mother’s words. He didn’t know how to even begin to process it. His brain might be too frazzled to try.  
  
Keith took another exit and drove down city streets and side streets until they were in a neighborhood that even in the dark Lance could tell was swank. There were barns out here, but no meadows or fields of crops: a sign of horses kept for pleasure riding. It kind of reminded Lance of a neighborhood in Kendall where some of his mother’s clients had lived.  
  
Keith pulled into a driveway deep and wide enough for a semi-truck to navigate comfortably. Motion sensor spotlights lit up the gloom as they rolled to the end of the drive, where a massive house lolled like a sleepy cat among blue palo verde trees and red bougainvillea. The driveway widened even more at the zenith so that a car could easily turn left to get into one of the two parking garages attached to the house.  
  
When Keith’s headlights cut to the right midway through his leftward curve, they lit up a turquoise Ford Thunderbird parked politely in the farthest corner. Matt stood in the car’s open door with Allura, both lifting their hands and squinting as Keith continued past them and cruised under the door of the smaller garage before it was even all the way open.  
  
“I’ma just park first,” Keith said, staring forward with eyes at half-mast.  
  
“’kay.” Lance unbuckled his seat belt and tried to wake up a little more. “Don’t forget to call Shiro.”  
  
“I been calling him, why don’t he call me back?” Pure fatigue made Keith’s voice take on a whine in both tone and accent that Lance was sure he’d never have let slip past if he was fully awake.  
  
“Maybe he did call back, have you checked your phone?” If he had checked it then it must have been while Lance was succumbing to a microsleep because he didn’t remember it.  
  
“No, ‘cause I was driving.” Keith refused to let Lance drive his baby.  
  
“Well check it now.”  
  
“Fine,” Keith said, only it came out ‘fahn.’ He snatched his phone out of the cradle and thumbed over to alerts. “Oh, it went to drivemode.” He checked his missed calls. They popped up on his screen like bubbles in a glass of cava. “He called me back!”  
  
“Yay.” Lance couldn’t help but smile for them. Ever since breaking up with his college sweetheart Shiro had fallen into a rut of dating the human equivalent of asparagus water. He really needed someone who could blow his floof back and Keith seemed like the right man for the job. “Now call him back before his whole head of hair turns white.”  
  
“You think he’s still up?”  
  
“Oh, I guarantee you he’s still up.” He was probably up trying to make himself double-strength coffee to wait for Keith’s callback.  
  
Lance glanced in the wing mirror while Keith eagerly hit redial, and caught sight of Matt leaning on the garage doorframe with an expression of fretful affection on his face. Lance popped open the passenger door and stumbled out of the vehicle on tired legs. Matt swooped forward to catch him in his arms.  
  
“Hi.” Lance melted into the warm hug, inhaling the comfort of Matt’s scent.  
  
Matt sniffed him back just as enthusiastically. “Hey.”  
  
“Hullo.” Allura looked upon the whole group convening in her driveway in bemusement. She wore a blue dressing gown trimmed in pink fluff and somehow still managed to look put together. She could probably walk into a cocktail bar looking just like that and order a dry martini and not get kicked out for inappropriate dress.  
  
“Hi ‘llura,” Lance said sleepily over Matt’s shoulder. “Thanks for letting us meet in your driveway late at night.”  
  
“I trust that everything is alright?” she asked.  
  
“Right as rain now.” Lance closed his eyes and subtly scent marked Matt’s t-shirt. Or maybe not so subtly as he felt Matt’s chest expand and a laugh burble up from his diaphragm.  
  
“Shiro said they're still looking for el tipo raro,” Keith piped up as he got out of the driver’s seat and stretched. “He wants to meet us for dinner later.”  
  
Lance viewed Keith sideways from Matt’s firm shoulder. “Is he planning on sleeping anytime this week?”  
  
“He said he was flying in.”  
  
Lance took another deep breath of Matt’s shirt as his tired brain teased out the important implication of that statement. Shiro hated flying. He’d overcome his PTSD-induced aviophobia with an iron will, but the pain of losing his first choice of career still stung him such that he only ever booked a flight if it was an emergency.  
  
Maybe this was just Shiro being so excited to see Keith again that he couldn’t wait. Or maybe this was an emergency. If Sadak had realized his omega was alive, he would never give up trying to find him. Lance lifted his head from Matt’s shoulder.  
  
 “Where and when does he want to meet?”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Nero Janka swiped the beanie off his cap of blond hair as he clomped across the empty parking lot to his car. Night security at an abandoned mall was a boring way to keep the fuzz from wondering how he was keeping his lights on, but it did give him ample time to work on his other projects. If only the surroundings weren’t so uncomfortable. He was looking forward to going home and kicking back with a can of Sparks and some P2P.  
  
Janka caught the scent of ripe alpha on approach to his car and paused, looking around. The night was as eerily still as a frozen video game screen. He hurried to the driver’s door of his Chrysler Imperial, unlocking it with the keyless entry fob as he went. He sank into the velour driver’s seat, yanked the door shut and flipped the power door locks. He sighed as he heard that reassuring click, then stiffened. The smell of alpha, ephemeral as vapor out in the parking lot, was as thick as afternoon smog inside the car.  
  
“Whatever you want, I can get it for get you,” he rushed to say, looking in the rear view mirror into the dark backseat. Just enough light filtered through to glint off the strange eyes of his uninvited guest.  
  
He’d bought this car because of the privacy afforded by the sunshades and angles of the backseat windows. He could conduct business in the backseat and even a drone would have trouble getting a good visual. If he’d known he could turn into an urban legend because of it, he’d have just gone with the Camaro he originally wanted.  
  
“I’m thrilled to hear it,” said the alpha, “because you have no idea how much trouble I’ve gone to, or how much I can create.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Please stay?” Matt had braked to a stop in his driveway while the automatic garage door opened. He was half-turned in the driver’s seat awaiting Lance’s reply.  
  
Lance didn’t consider himself inexperienced, but he had never been on an adult sleepover before. With Cliff such a thing had been out of the question. They were lucky if they could get stolen moments in the backseat of his car before Dad or one of his friends showed up to scare the jizz back into Cliff’s body. As for Sadak, he had taken him straight from the dorms to the marital bed. Their courtship had been old-fashioned, except for the part where Sadak had skipped asking Dad for his hand in marriage.  
  
There had been no serious boyfriends in between, so this was a brand new experience for Lance to negotiate. He was fiercely glad to be alive to have it, and to be able to share it with Matt.  
  
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll stay.”  
  
Matt’s relieved smile rose on his face like a sunrise. “Okay.”  
  
They puttered into the garage and then Matt let them into the utility room. “Are you hungry?” he asked as they passed through into a narrow hallway.  
  
Lance’s stomach let out a grumble that sounded like the synthesizer in “Candy Girl.” He blushed. “Yeah I could eat,” he admitted since there was really no hiding it after that.  
  
Matt laughed and took his hand. “Come on, I’ll fix us something quick.”  
  
They filled bowls with cereal and milk, and ate them on Matt’s lived-in couch while giggling at a movie about mutant bats that they found channel surfing on late night cable.  
  
“You can borrow some of my pj’s,” Matt suggested after, as they rinsed out the bowls in the sink. “If you want.”  
  
“That would be nice.” Lance smiled his acceptance of the offer.  
  
Matt led him back down the central hall, then hesitated just past the utility room. “The guest bath is on the right, if you want to use that one, there’s nothing really in there right now except a giant bottle of Castile soap my sister uses, but I could-”  
  
“I’d rather use your bathroom.” Lance didn’t want to be put up in the guest room. That’s not who they were to each other. He’d let go of any doubts on that point.  
  
Matt held both of Lance’s hands in his, staring at their fingers twined like cream swirling in coffee. He looked up. “Are you sure?”  
  
Lance nodded. “Yes I’m sure.” His chest teemed with the feeling of surety.  
  
“Okay.” He folded one of Lance’s hands in one of his and led him into the master suite.  
  
Lance looked around with interest. Matt had a bookcase headboard crammed with paperbacks which overflowed onto the nightstand, competing for space with the reading lamp. The queen-sized bed had been haphazardly made with soft cotton blankets slightly pulled down and big puffy pillows slightly askew. Matt’s scent beckoned from its comfortable-looking folds.  
  
“Bathroom’s through here.” Matt gently pulled him through the open door. “Um, there’s no tub in mine. I hope a shower’s alright.”  
  
“I like showers.” Lance smiled at Matt, who let go of his hand to go and rummage through his chest of drawers.  
  
Matt’s master bathroom was, like Lance’s, a study in different patterns of tile, but in Matt’s case it looked like it had been an intentional decorating choice instead of the byproduct of emergency renovations. The patterns in alabaster, rose and multiple shades of brown were harmoniously appealing, but what really got Lance's attention was the fact that the walk-in shower was walled in on three sides in sparkling clear glass. All clear, not so much as a strip of privacy film.  
  
Guess Matt wasn’t body shy either.  
  
“Here you go.” Matt passed over a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. “I can go do something in the other room for awhile, if you want.”  
  
Lance looked at the folded nightclothes and then at Matt’s face. “You’re not going to join me?”  
  
A sharp, sweet burst of ozone danced on the air between them as Matt's eyes widened. “I could do that?”  
  
Maybe they weren’t as much on the same page as Lance had first assumed. He stepped into Matt’s space and put an arm around his waist. “Are you good with this too?” This was uncharted territory for Lance, in more ways than one.  
  
Much to his relief, Matt returned the embrace. “I don’t want to go too fast for you.”  
  
“I trust you to respect my limits if you’ll trust me to respect yours too.”  
  
“Deal.”  
  
The nightclothes dropped to the bathroom floor as their lips met. The rest of their clothes rained down garment by garment between increasingly eager kisses, flesh revealed in teasing increments.  
  
The tawny hair lightly dusting Matt’s pecs felt as soft as kitten fur against Lance’s bare chest. He traced its tapering trail down Matt’s sternum to the waistband of softly worn cotton trunks. He palmed the front and Matt made a low, husky noise that went straight to Lance’s own groin. His hands languidly mapping Lance’s sides and back began to stroke with greater urgency.  
  
They shucked their underwear and rushed into the shower without warming the water first, resulting in shrieking and laughing, and trying to share body heat by huddling together on the shower bench. Gradually steam rose from the dual shower heads and the pair became distracted by each other’s bodies again.  
  
Draped sideways across his lap as he was, Lance could feel Matt’s hardness against his posterior and the tension in the corded muscles of the arm supporting his back. He tightened his hold around Matt’s shoulders and undulated against him, desperate for touch to the center of his own desire. Matt reacted instantly, making another one of those delicious noises as he ran his warm hand down Lance’s chest, over his tightened abdominal muscles, to cup his need and wet a finger inside of him.  
  
Lance chirped into the kiss and Matt raised his head, eyes blown and lips kiss-swollen. “More?” he asked. Lance nodded. “More.”  
  
Matt besotted him with another kiss as his hand and fingers worked together to blow Lance’s mind. Back and forth, his fingers advanced and retreated and so did his slicked palm across Lance’s balls and cocklet. His body wound tight as a bow until he gave into the need to bend back like one, gasps passing from between his freed lips until suddenly the string was released and his orgasm shot through him like an arrow. Pleasing aftershocks spasmed through him as fluid spurted onto his stomach and coated Matt’s hand.  
  
Matt watched him in open-mouthed wonder. “Eres bello,” he said. Steam darkened his lashes and brought roses to his cheeks and lips.  
  
“So are you.” Lance braced his hands on Matt’s broad shoulders as he switched positions so that he was straddling Matt’s strong thighs.  
  
He reached down between them for Matt’s cock, standing up proudly with a flushed glans. Lance pulled it against his own taut belly and ran his hands over it, eliciting an inhale from Matt, who gripped his hips to help him stay balanced. It was like stroking velvet. Up and down, down and up, so soft on top but so hard underneath, larger than his own but just right for his hands. The glans was so smooth to touch, the tip releasing pearly effluence that, along with Lance’s own juices, helped lubricate his increasingly brisk strokes. Lance stared at his handiwork in fascination.  
  
“Lance,” Matt panted. “I’m gonna... I’m gonna cum...”  
  
Then he did, pulsing milky semen all over Lance’s hands and painting both of their stomachs.  
  
_I did that_ , Lance thought, _and he let me_.  
  
“You’re incredible, you know that?” Matt hugged Lance around the waist, pulling him closer. Their combined mess squished damply between them. Matt looked like that was the furthest thing from his mind.  
  
Lance grinned down at him. “Give yourself equal credit, querido.”  
  
Laughing breathlessly, they cleaned each other up with the herbal-scented products in Matt’s shower and dried each other off with fluffy mismatched towels. They changed into nightclothes smelling sweetly of fabric softener and crawled into Matt’s bed.  
  
Drifting off surrounded by Matt’s warmth and scent, Lance purred for the first time in a very long time. He felt safer than he had in years.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Surely you must be joking.” Sendak held his iPhone against his ear as he stared down the monstrosity in the alley before him. He had ditched the Samsung, knowing that Honerva was probably tracking it by now.  
  
_“It’s very safe.”_  
  
“It is a station wagon.” And it was purple. Inside and out.  
  
_“You wanted a car on short notice that will get you to Arizona safely. I delivered a car on short notice that will get you to Arizona safely. I honored the terms of our deal.”_  
  
Sendak supposed he couldn’t argue with that, though he wanted to. The authorities would be looking for his rental car by now. Nobody would be looking for this aubergine heap.  
  
“If it breaks down before I reach my objective I will consider our deal in breach of contract, and Janka? If that happens I will come for you.”  
  
He hung up on Janka and resigned himself to sitting behind a purple dashboard for the next several hours. He did not regret leaving the Samsung under the seat in Janka’s car. If it caused that perfidious creature even a moment of trouble it would be vengeance served. However, Sendak did notice one good thing about the Volvo as he circled around it to get to the driver’s seat.  
  
Hauling an unconscious omega into the back should be a breeze.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Special Agent Greg Miranda gathered up his folders and began to organize his security briefcase. He had no concrete reason to believe he would have to terminate his short stay in this hastily improvised command center, just a feeling. He’d learned long ago not to ignore those feelings.  
  
He lifted his head at the shuffling noise of PO Taggart opening the door for someone. He wasn’t at all surprised to see it was Criminal Investigator Acciai, stalking forward with an extra-serious look on her stoically beautiful face.  
  
“Sir,” she said, “Shirogane has purchased a plane ticket to Phoenix. Should I tail him?”  
  
“He’s not under any suspicion of colluding with the Culebra organization,” Miranda said, but even as he was saying it, he was dialing a recently added contact on his phone.  
  
He had a different suspicion about what Shirogane was up to, and a strengthening feeling that wherever he went, Sadak Sendak would be sure to follow. The FBI could get in place faster, and as far as Miranda was concerned they could have this mortal head from the hydra, as long as it led him another step closer to big snake numero uno.  
  
_“Zielenski,”_ a gruff female voice answered the line.  
  
“Special Agent Zielenski,” Miranda replied, “I am Special Agent Miranda, CGIS. I believe our investigations may be dovetailing.”  
  
There was a pause, and then, _“You got my attention, keep talking.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> el tipo raro - "the weird guy." Keith doesn't want to worry Allura, so he's being deliberately vague.
> 
> eres bello - "You're beautiful."
> 
> querido - "dear"


	14. Watching The Detectives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Voltron fam gets on with their day while various parties converge upon their location.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos, you guys are the best!

 

Lance had not woken up so comfortably in he didn’t even know how long. Mattresses were a marvelous invention. He needed to get himself a proper one soon. He stretched each limb in every direction, already aware that he had the bed to himself. Matt’s smell was still pervasive in the percale sheets, but the source had gotten up probably about twenty minutes prior.  
  
Matt had let him sleep in. That was another thing he wasn’t accustomed to in a shared bed situation. He rolled around and made blanket angels and felt like a proper hedonist until Matt leaned into the bedroom door.  
  
“Hey.” Matt had the most magnificently leonine bed head Lance had ever seen. If only his phone was near to hand so he could take a picture and appreciate it for all posterity. “Thought I heard you moving around in here.”  
  
“Sorry.” Lance flopped spreadeagled. “I’ll wash the sheets and blankets and remake the bed for you.”  
  
“I really wish you wouldn’t.” Matt grinned. “I like having your scent all over it.”  
  
“Well okay then, I won’t.” Lance rose from the bed and rambled over to crowd Matt in the doorway. “Hi.”  
  
Matt’s eyes and smile were soft and bright close up. “Hi.”  
  
They kissed good morning. They both had morning breath and it didn’t bother Lance one little bit.  
  
“You hungry?” Matt asked when they came up for air.  
  
Lance’s stomach growled before he could answer. He put his hands over his belly in a vain attempt to mute it. Matt laughed and led him into the kitchen where he lifted the lid on a pottery skillet to reveal simmering tomato sauce which released a warm puff of chili aroma.  
  
“How do you like your eggs?” Matt already had them cracked and waiting in little Pyrex glasses.  
  
“Sunny side up.”  
  
Matt smiled as he tipped the eggs into the sauce in the skillet. “Me too.”  
  
There was another pot on a burner next to the skillet, of beautiful glazed brown clay with a trinity knot painted on it in green. Matt took it off the burner and set it on a straw trivet.  
  
“Are you cooking beans?”  
  
Matt looked at Lance over his shoulder and chuckled. “No, I usually skip the frijoles refritos, drives my mother nuts. This is café de olla. Want some?”  
  
Lance nodded. “Yes, please!” That beanpot he’d been using to store his coffee in might have actually been for coffee beans this whole time, in a manner of speaking.  
  
Matt set a little mesh strainer across the rim of a clay coffee mug and ladled in coffee from the olla. Fragrant dark coffee steamed into the mug, leaving grounds and some cloves and star anise gleaming wetly in the strainer. Matt tipped the grounds and spices back into the olla and passed the mug to Lance, who accepted it with a grateful sigh.  
  
He took a sip. It was to the instant café de olla back in his kitchen as Mamá’s congri rice was to a packet of Vigo. It was a revelation.  
  
“Can you teach me how to make this?” he asked between sips.  
  
Matt smiled at him over the lip of his own mug of coffee. “I’d be happy to make it for you any time you want, but I’ll teach you if you really want to learn.”  
  
“I do.”  
  
_“Front door open.”_  
  
Lance and Matt both turned to peer past the breakfast bar as familiar chattering voices passed from the living room into the dining room.  
  
“I thought having a security system meant I’d know about unexpected company before they waltzed in the door?” Matt called out teasingly.  
  
“Yeah, only if it’s anyone but me.” Pidge ambled into the dining room, slinging a book bag on the table. “Got any more of that coffee?”  
  
“I thought you had a class this morning?” Lance asked the wild-haired figure slouching in after her.  
  
Keith snorted, setting his own backpack on a chair. “I’ve been to class this morning. I wouldn’t say no to more coffee though.”  
  
Matt started ladling up more mugs of coffee. “I’ve got plenty of coffee but I only made enough huevos rancheros for me and Lance,” he said.  
  
“That’s alright.” Pidge set down a grease-stained cardboard box close enough to her book bag that there would be scent transfer if she didn’t move it. “More of this for us then.” Alphas were well-known for having a higher tolerance for amino acid odors than other dynamics, so carrying around a bag smelling of fried meat all day probably wouldn’t phase her.  
  
Lance sat down with Matt to a late breakfast while Pidge and Keith served themselves up an early lunch of all of the fried food groups. Lance forked up a messy bite of runny eggs, spicy tomato sauce and corn tortilla with cheese. Yum.  
  
“No beans?” Pidge poked at her brother. “Barbarian.”  
  
“You gonna tattle on me to Ma?”  
  
“I don’t know.” Pidge’s eyebrows waggled comically as she side-eyed Lance and then Matt. “Should I?”  
  
Lance blushed. Even though they’d washed off the evidence of sexual intimacy from the night before, there was no disguising the fact that they’d slept in the same bed. Their scents were all over each other.  
  
Matt flicked sauce off his fork at his sister; Pidge squawked as it speckled her forehead.  
  
“Just being a barbarian,” Matt said nonchalantly as he scooped up a nice bite of huevos rancheros for himself. “Doing what barbarians do.” He made a noise of surprise around his fork as a fried pickle bounced off his cheek and landed on his plate.  
  
“Caveman 1, astronaut 2,” Pidge declared as she swabbed the sauce off her face with a waffle fry.  
  
“Where’d you get the extra point?” Matt demanded.  
  
“I could never hope to explain such advanced maths to you.” She saucily ate the fry.  
  
Lance exchanged mirthful glances with Keith as they continued to stuff their faces. It felt sweet to be able to relax enough to enjoy good food and company. He resolved to savor it like there was no tomorrow.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“You and your fancy coffee.” Ethelreda Zielenski strode over the tiles of the Sky Harbor concourse at the briskest clip the alpha’s six foot tall frame could do without breaking into double time.  
  
“Don’t judge me.” Agent Zora Ezer kept up with her easily, sipping her cinnamon mocha unrepentantly. The beta was two inches shorter than Reda, but more of her length was in the legs. “You could have had one too.”  
  
“I’ll have something at the terminal.” She wanted to be in place looking like she belonged there before Shirogane’s flight got in. If the only food sold near his gate was turds on a stick she’d eat one, as long as it let her blend in. Hopefully Ezer’s frou frou coffee wouldn’t get them kicked out of the joint.  
  
Reda had gone to the trouble of buying refundable outbound flight tickets for herself and Ezer so they could get past security without having to do the ‘law enforcement on duty, let me through’ dance with TSA. It might have been faster to do it that way, but Reda wanted to stay incognito. She didn’t want to take even the slightest chance that Shirogane would take notice of her and rabbit.  
  
“How come we don’t just intercept him openly?” Ezer licked whipped cream off her straw without slowing her leggy stride. “He’s not a suspect and there’s no love lost between him and our guy, maybe he’d cooperate.”  
  
“Because I think he’s gonna lead us to wifey.” Reda’s plum-glossed lips stretched in a smirk. Miranda had tried to keep that tidbit out of their information-sharing exchange but his paper trail gave his suspicions away.  
  
“Isn’t wifey supposed to be dead?” Ezer’s ditz act was pretty convincing, but she actually caught up pretty fast with just a few breadcrumbs thrown her way, which was one of the reasons why Reda preferred to work with her whenever the opportunity arose.  
  
“Supposed to be is the operative phrase.” Oh hallelujah, there was a coffee stand in the level three terminal. Good old cuppa joe no frills. “Miranda thinks he’s alive, and I bet you that coffee you’re drinking Sendak thinks so too.”  
  
“No bet.” Ezer hugged the to-go cup to the lapel of her one-button blazer.  
  
Smart cookie.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
A mountain range glowed beyond the shimmering stretch of asphalt like the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. There might have also been a road sign welcoming Sendak to Arizona, but he whipped past it so fast he only got an impression of a graphic that looked like a shooting star.  
  
The heat had grown intolerable. Sendak had shucked out of his blazer, which now rested on the purple seat beside him, and opened the collar and sleeves of his button-up. He had the air conditioner on full blast and yet he still burned. Sweat dripped down into his eyes but he did not ease his foot off the gas pedal.  
  
Soon there would be sweet relief.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Janka often fantasized about having a hot chick up in his grille. However, the reality was considerably more disconcerting. “I swear, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
  
Drops of sweat rolled down his back under his shirt but his scent remained patchouli fresh while the investigators exercised their search warrant on his car. Thank Zeus they only had a warrant for the car and not for his apartment. His scent maskers were holding up well. Hell of a way to put them to the test, though.  
  
The smokin’ hot beta in the navy blue uniform stared him down with eyes as hard as a blackboard, her chalk scent unwavering. It didn’t really matter whether Agent Acciai believed him, so long as she couldn’t prove anything.  
  
“Found it!” The cute ponytailed redhead who’d been casing his car came up with a cell phone in her upraised hand.  
  
“Good job Mary Ann.” Acciai turned a sharp-toothed smile on Janka. “You want to tell me again how you haven’t spoken to Sadak Sendak in three years?”  
  
Janka knew with one look that the Samsung in Agent Larminie’s gloved hand was not one of his. “That’s not my phone!”  
  
“That is precisely my point.” Acciai ground her teeth audibly. “What is it doing in your car?”  
  
Realization sat in Janka’s stomach like stale potato chips. That double-crossing motherfucker.  
  
“I want to make a deal.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Shiro took a deep breath as he exited the tarmac and entered the arrival terminal with his overnight bag on his shoulder. Traveling by plane always left him feeling like he was carrying a heavy stone between his shoulder blades, but with the lingering scent of jet fuel evaporating in the air conditioning, he was starting to feel a bit better. He walked past baggage claim without stopping and headed for the pickup area.  
  
Through the glass doors he spotted a lovely smile framed by black hair, the fluorescent lighting doing nothing to blight that beauty, and felt one hundred percent better. He rushed past other bedraggled travelers and almost barked his shins on a bollard to get to him.  
  
“Hey.” Keith’s grin turned into a laugh as Shiro closed the distance between them and kissed him soundly on the mouth.  
  
“Hey.” Shiro smiled down at him. The stone was gone.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Keith checked for signs of activity in the windows of the main house as he cruised down the driveway with Shiro smelling like a cinnamon dream in the passenger seat next to him. He was extremely fond of Allura, but if she were to pull her big sister act and ask Shiro what his intentions were he just might die of embarrassment.  
  
The coast appeared to be clear. Keith breathed a sigh of relief as he pressed the clicker to open his garage door. Shiro gaped at the house with the expected degree of flabbergasted curiosity.  
  
Alfor Fallows had been a man of eccentric tastes.  
  
“Come on, I’ll show you where you can put your bag.”  
  
Keith led Shiro through the guest suite door, past the galley kitchen with the bistro set parked under the window, through the office/living room area, past the bathroom, and into his bedroom. There would be time to give him a more thorough tour later. Maybe they could find out if the loveseat lived up to the name.  
  
“You can set your bag down next to the bed or wherever.” Keith shifted in place nervously watching Shiro slowly advance on the black metal low-poster bed with the linen quilt and the red wool blanket tossed over a finial. It was a double. He had no idea how he was going to fit an alpha as tall and broad as Shiro into it and still leave room for himself, but he was sure he could work it out.  
  
Shiro slowly set his bag down on the carpet next to the escritoire that was doubling as a nightstand. “You sure about this?” he asked. “I can always go to a hotel.”  
  
Keith scoffed. “There’s no way I’m making you go to a hotel when I can have you here with me.”  
  
Shiro’s grin was charmingly goofy on his classically handsome face. “I’m going to take you up on that then, even though Lorenzo should have offered to put me up, instead of putting you out.”  
  
“Oh, he offered,” Keith admitted.  
  
He was getting the impression that Shiro was some kind of honorary uncle to Lance, the way they acted towards each other. Shiro had benign expectations of decorous behavior from Lance, and Lance seemed to benignly confound those expectations without even trying.  
  
“Trust me, you do not wanna stay in that guest room,” Keith added. Lance had promised he could get it cleaned up before Shiro arrived, but just... no. Who knows what microbiota dwelt within that carpet? “And anyway, who said anything about putting me out?” Keith putting out, on the other hand, was completely on the table.  
  
Shiro pulled Keith into his arms. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in such a long time.” His eyes shone like sterling silver in the afternoon light streaming in through the bedroom window.  
  
“Guess you better hold onto me, then.” Keith slipped his arms around Shiro’s waist without breaking eye contact.  
  
“Count on it.”  
  
This time when they kissed it was softer, silkier, and lasted until they’d both had their fill, which was a deliciously long while later.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Sendak rolled slowly down an alley in the enclave of gaudy houses where Laurel’s accomplice lived. He had known better than to use the main thoroughfares. A purple car would be remembered, even here. He did not care to risk discovery until he had visual confirmation that Laurel had been hidden away in this place. Then he would reclaim his omega. He inched the car forward, squinting at the boundary wall to read the address plaques. Fortune smiled on him, that this neighborhood incorporated such wide alleys for city vehicle access. It might not turn out so fortunate for the resident he was looking for.  
  
Keith Aguirre, the owner of the rattletrap that had managed to evade him at the medical facility, was an alpha according to the college I.D. that Janka dug up. He was a strangely pretty alpha. Sendak had stared at his picture, taking in the delicate bone structure and large limpid eyes. With Shirogane he could almost understand the appeal. Despite his unfortunate choice of career and his missing limb Shirogane was still movie star handsome, with a square chin and a V-shaped torso. But this alpha, Aguirre, he was as pretty as an omega. It didn’t make sense.  
  
How could Laurel, a thoroughbred omega prime, have been lured away by these deficient alphas who had never bargained for him, never sacrificed time, talent and money to keep him? Sendak snarled and squeezed the steering wheel hard enough to feel the vinyl warp under his fingers. What could these alphas possibly have that Sendak himself did not posses in greater abundance? Did he not give his omega everything he fucking required? Beautiful homes to tend, beautiful clothes to flaunt, occasions to see and be seen by the beautiful people? What more did he want, pups?  
  
The thought of it stilled Sendak’s churning thoughts as if he’d entered the eye of a hurricane. Could that be what he wanted? Giving him pups would require... that. But it would tie his omega to him in a way that could no longer be denied, prove to him once and for all that Sendak and no other was his alpha. Even the bite could not create so strong a connection as a child, and if he kept Laurel’s belly full with pups it would not be so easy for him to run away from his duties again.  
  
And they would be beautiful pups. Well-dressed, impeccably mannered... he could see it already in his mind’s eye as he clambered out of the car and climbed onto its roof to look over the boundary wall at the side of Aguirre’s residence. It was taken up entirely by garage doors, a single and a triple. How many alphas lived in this place?  
  
The single garage door opened and the red jalopy backed out of it. Laughing in the windshield’s reflection were Aguirre and none other than Shirogane. Shirogane, here! Sendak’s nervous system ignited like gunpowder. They must be going to wherever they were keeping Laurel.  
  
Sendak jumped down off the car’s roof and fumbled into the driver’s seat. He had to follow them.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance sat back on his haunches, gloved hands on dusty knees, and surveyed his handiwork. Thinking he’d have this room ready in time for Shiro to sleep in it had been delusionally optimistic at best. It was a good thing Keith volunteered his bed with an enthusiasm that refused to be denied.  
  
The flooring under the formerly-orange sculptured carpet was unfinished strip oak, and it was in good condition thanks to the arid climate and the thickness of the carpet, which had absorbed anything that might have hoped to stain it. Said carpet rested in a stinky pile by the door, along with the underlay. After the tack strips and all the staples had been pulled out, and the floor sanded and finished, it would be like a whole new room.  
  
For now though, Lance was content with getting that carpet and pad out of the house. Even through his dust mask he could smell it, and it was rank with a note he couldn't quite identify. It wasn't a pet smell, whatever it was. He’d used a utility knife to tear out the carpet in manageable chunks, which made it easier to drag the remnants out to the carport. He was going to have to live with the smell outside his side door until he could arrange a recycle pickup.  
  
He pulled up his dust mask, regretted it, and pulled it back down again as he stretched his back. There was one more thing he could do as long as he was out here with the remaining daylight on his side. Still stretching, he ambled over to the crack in the driveway where the lupine had gone to seed. He examined the fuzzy seed pods on the wild growing plant and found them brown and ripe-looking. He removed one, gave it a gentle shake and heard a telltale rattle.  
  
He went back into the kitchen for a paper bag and returned to the lupine to harvest the seed pods. When he brought them back into the kitchen he took off his mask, pulled down a sunflower bowl from the cupboard and started sorting seed pods by pinching the tops. Some of the pods immediately cracked open and released little black seeds into the bowl. The rest he put back in the paper bag, which he rolled closed and set on the kitchen window sill to dry out some more.  
  
He retrieved his hand fork and took that and the bowl of seeds out into the backyard. His steps slowed as he approached the apple tree.  
  
“It’s time I started making good on that promise I made you, yeah?”  
  
Mamá had always believed that plants understood when someone was speaking to them, by tone if not by words. Tree branches waved barely perceptibly in the slight breeze. He considered that as much of a blessing as he was likely to get and knelt under the tree’s spiky crown.  
  
Carefully he turned the soil with the hand fork, trying to avoid the tree’s fibrous roots. He planted the lupine seeds and gave them their first watering. There was no chance of blooms until spring, but with any luck at least a few of the seeds would germinate and begin fixing the nitrogen in the soil over the winter. Later he could plant some coriander as another companion, to discourage aphids away from the tree and the lupine.  
  
He clapped soil off his gloved hands, feeling the grimy satisfaction of a hard day’s work. His cell phone suddenly belted out a bar of a Sister Sledge song from the holster he’d made out of one of his mismatched socks. Lance took off one glove and answered the phone.  
  
“Hey Keith, what’s up?”  
  
_“Are you ready to go?”_  
  
Shiro. Dinner. That was still today. He’d lost track of the time! “How close are you?”  
  
_“Lance!”_  
  
Lance could hear Shiro laughing uproariously in the background. “I’ll be ready, okay? Just drive slow so I can wash the garden off me!”  
  
_“You better be ready!”_  
  
Lance took the fastest shower in the history of showers. No need to fuss over hair care or moisturizer, since it was just Shiro and Keith. He practically broke the sound barrier whipping on his clothes - a clean t-shirt, the nicer pair of jeans, and the army surplus jacket because the weather was finally cooling down a bit and also his hoodie was dirty. He finger-combed his hair on his way to the side door and opened it to find Shiro and Keith standing there holding their noses.  
  
“Sorry man, I underestimated the amazing smell I would discover.”  
  
“Give me the tour,” Shiro said gamely.  
  
“Just get me out of the stench,” Keith put in his two cents.  
  
Lance showed Shiro around and Keith made sure to say “See?” when they got to the freshly gutted guest room.  
  
“If the whole house started off like this room then I’d say you’re making good progress,” Shiro said, patting Lance’s shoulder encouragingly. “I can’t help but notice you don’t have a lot of furniture around here. I’ve got some old stuff just sitting in my garage, I can bring it out for you if you want.”  
  
“Or I can go and get it,” Keith was quick to add.  
  
Those two were so obvious. Lance knew exactly what Keith was interested in getting, and he would probably want to get it over the course of an entire weekend, but who was he to stand in the way of young love?  
  
“Sure, that’s cool with me. Thanks guys.” If taking Shiro’s not-so-gently-used college furniture off his hands meant furthering the cause of romance, then just call him cupid.  
  
Lance closed the guest room door behind him so the lingering odor wouldn’t permeate the rest of the house and they all filed out of the front door to avoid the carpet stank under the carport.  
  
Keith had thoughtfully put a sleeping bag in the cargo area of his little 4x4 for Lance to recline on. Lance leaned on the back of Shiro’s bucket seat and stretched out his legs as they pulled out of his driveway, then took out his phone and texted Matt.  


  * _Hey babe goin out w/Keith and Shiro now, see u ltr?_



  
Matt had a prior commitment on campus helping his students block a scene, or he would have been going with them. Lance’s phone chimed back seconds later.  


  * _I’ll be waiting with bells on when you get back. ;)_



  
Knowing Matt, he could mean that literally. Lance grinned. Even if he didn’t, it would still be something to look forward to after whatever news had motivated Shiro to get on an airplane instead of driving himself.  


  * _( ˘ ³˘)♥_



  
If he hadn’t been so preoccupied with throwing text kisses, Lance might have noticed a purple car parked in a neighbor’s driveway where no purple car had ever been parked before.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Sendak followed the red beater, careful to keep at least one car between him and it so as to avoid detection. His father-in-law’s business associates had taught him a few skills that were now proving exceptionally useful.  
  
The half-wit alphas led him to a residential neighborhood of middle class dwellings. He turned the corner after them, saw them parking in front of a blue-grey slab of a house, and immediately parked in an empty driveway across the street. He angled the station wagon’s rear view mirror to watch the two alphas disappear around the side of the house. If this was their love nest, it was an awfully pedestrian one. Laurel did not belong in a place so mundane. Perhaps they were here for some other reason?  
  
Then the front door opened and who should step out with the two alphas but Laurel, gold-limned in the fading light. Sendak’s entire body boiled with outrage at the sight of him. His hair! What had they done to his beautiful hair? It had been shorn like a lamb’s to curl over his scalp in careless disarray. And those clothes! They swamped his svelte shape and the colors, so drab! Why was he smiling? How could he laugh with these alphas who took such poor care in providing for him?  
  
The two alphas put Laurel in the back of their tin heap. Sunset glow reflected off the puffy-shiny material of a sleeping bag before they closed the hatch. No doubt they were taking him away for some assignation in the vehicle. Sendak’s imagination helpfully supplied lurid images of what that might look like. Why would they take him away when they had a house right there? Were they breeding him outdoors like a feral cat?  
  
No matter. Their foolishness had provided him with an opening. When they brought Laurel back here, Sendak would be waiting for him. He would erase any memory or trace of the unworthy alphas with teeth and knot. He grinned at the thought of it. A thin sliver of saliva escaped from behind a canine tooth to slide over his lower lip.  
  
As soon as Aguirre’s vehicle was out of sight, Sendak backed out of the stranger’s driveway and drove to the gas station he’d noticed on the way in. He could park there and walk back to the house on foot after the last of the light had died. He took out his iPhone to check the time and as soon as he turned it on, it rang.  
  
Honerva! Growling, Sendak pressed send. “Leave me alone!” he howled, and hung up on her.  
  
Thoroughly rattled, he powered the phone back down. The last thing he needed was Honerva trying to reach him and giving away his position while he was inside a strange house. With the iPhone turned off, it would be just another piece of detritus to keep track of while he was doing what needed to be done. His head pounded like a bass drum. He would have to leave this phone behind in the transport and take only the burner phone with him. He opened the Volvo’s glove compartment to deposit the iPhone for safekeeping.  
  
There, nestled among fast food napkins and unopened packets of tomato ketchup, rested the matte black, snub-nosed frame of a Glock 19.  


 


	15. Strange Attractors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Various communiques are relayed, but not all important information is received.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kudos and bookmarks! Thanks also to demonsLOver for the comment, and you are not wrong!

 

Shiro made reservations at a classy steakhouse in Phoenix. “It’s got great reviews on Zagat,” he’d said, and Lance might almost have been convinced this was just Shiro being his usual foodie self, except that little blush across his cheekbones said he wanted to impress Keith.  
  
Keith looked suitably impressed as they followed the hostess through saloon doors. “Everybody talks about this place, did you know it’s supposed to be haunted?”  
  
Keith went on in depth about the local legends surrounding the restaurant while Shiro stared at him in rapt fascination. They weren’t paying a bit of heed when the hostess stopped in front of a well-padded booth table tucked into a corner.  
  
“You asked for a booth with a little privacy, I hope this will suit,” she said. She was a tall, thin beta with a layered bob and a name tag that said ‘Teodora.’  
  
Keith was still telling a story about reports of paranormal phenomena in and around the restaurant. Shiro was leaning way into his space to hear it. Neither of them appeared to have noticed that someone was talking to them.  
  
“This looks great, thank you ma’am,” Lance said.  
  
“You can call me Teo,” she smiled kindly, passing over the menus and wine list. “I’ll send the waiter over to take your drink order, make yourselves comfortable.”  
  
Lance took the menus in one hand and the wine list in the other and lightly smacked Keith and Shiro on their shoulders to get their attention.  
  
He might be in for a long night.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*   
  
  
“We got a pop on Shirogane.”   
  
Ezer spun in the task chair looking very pleased with herself as Reda entered the hotel suite with a bag of convenience foods from the gift shop downstairs. Reda had elected to do that chore herself so that they wouldn’t end up subsisting on only Froot Loops and Cosmic Brownies the whole time they were in town, leaving Ezer back in their room to dicker with the Arizona DOT.  
  
“That’s great but I thought you were looking for the guy with the flippety hair?”   
  
Reda had been kicking herself for assuming Shirogane was going to rent a car and find a hotel like they had. If he’d used his credit cards they’d have been able to follow him around easily, but that flippety-haired dude showing up had thrown a spanner in the works. Once they located the pretty boy they’d be back on track and wouldn’t have to worry about losing Shirogane again.  
  
“Oh, I found him too.” Ezer turned the screen of her laptop to show Reda her handiwork. Pretty boy was named Keith Aguirre. He was a university student, he’d gone to some trouble to legally remove part of his surname, and he was also-   
  
“An alpha?”  
  
“I know, right?” Ezer helped herself to a soft drink out of the bag in Reda’s arms. “He looks like an omega.”  
  
“Maybe they’re using him as a decoy,” Reda said, but she didn’t really believe it even as the words were coming out of her mouth.  
  
“That kiss didn’t look fake to me.” Ezer voiced Reda’s own thoughts on the matter.  
  
“When you’re right, you’re right.” Reda shoved the bag of food in the kitchenette’s fridge without sorting it. “Tell me about the pop.”  
  
“Shirogane bought a bottle of Cabernet at a steakhouse about five miles from here.” Ezer tapped her embellished nails on the aluminum can. “He’s got good taste.”  
  
“You up for a steak dinner?” Reda was grabbing her leather blazer out of the suite’s closet before she was even done asking the question.  
  
Ezer was right behind her. “I’m so hungry I could put away a whole cow.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*   
  
  
“Thanks sis.” Matt kept his voice low. They were about to start recording.  
  
“No prob.” Pidge smiled at her brother and kept the camcorder steady on the stage. They were seated at the front of the mezzanine to get more depth of field in the frame, and cover all of the actors and the entire set.  
  
The evening’s activities were about to culminate in a full run-through of a particularly challenging number, and Matt had spontaneously decided to get it on film, calling on his sister for help because of her proven prowess with handheld cameras. Not that she really needed much of an excuse to hang out with her brother. He told Pidge it was to review the video for anything he might miss during the live viewing, but he seemed way too excited about it for it to be just that.  
  
Whatever, she’d get the rest of it out of him later.  
  
 _“Sandy!”_  
  
 _“Tell me about it, stud.”_  
  
She’d put her phone on silent mode, so she wouldn’t notice the motion sensor alert until much later.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*   
  
  
Sendak slid through the dark like a deep sea creature, crossing unlit lawns and slipping through unfenced side yards to avoid the street lamps. When he reached the carport where he’d seen the other alphas going in to retrieve his Laurel, he encountered an odor of dirty ashtrays he had not smelled so strongly since Grandfather Yurak had been alive. How the old man could glare malevolently down his long nose over a burning Marlboro, even after cataracts obscured the distinctive Sendak eyes.  
  
The porch lights suddenly turned on. Frantically, Sendak breathed through his mouth while grappling with the door handle. The door opened and he fell across the threshold with a resounding thump; he threw himself to his feet and yanked the door shut behind him. As his racing heartbeat began to settle, he found himself standing alone in a dark, silent kitchen. The porch lights must have been on a timer.  
  
Laurel’s scent was strongest among the variegated scents in the room. Sendak released his held breath and inhaled deeply. He smelled saffron and sweetgrass, and something even sweeter. He didn’t know what it was but it drew a rumble unbidden from deep within his chest. He also smelled Shirogane’s weird candy apple scent. He huffed, trying to catch a whiff of the second alpha, but there was nothing. He was picking up coffee and fruit, but neither of those had the unmistakable tinge of human pheromones.   
  
Sendak turned to the refrigerator, an ancient thing but clean because his Laurel was always clean even in such downtrodden surroundings as this. Inside he found the likely source of the fruit smell, a bowl of pear slices soaking in honey water under plastic wrap. He snatched it out and devoured the fruit while standing in the chill created by the open refrigerator door, then drank down the honey water. When he was done he shoved the empty bowl back on the shelf with the cellophane a crinkled mess inside it and let the door fall shut.   
  
Still huffing air deep into his sinuses, Sendak crept after Laurel’s scent trail down a hallway that led into cooler darkness.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*   
  
  
Lance let his eyes fall half-shut as he sipped his wine. He could taste why Shiro had chosen this vintage. It was quite smokey. He glanced at Keith to see if he’d picked up on it yet. Keith was busy grinning dopily at Shiro and trying not to be too obvious about it (even though he totally was). Lance smiled into his wine glass. It was nice to just enjoy imbibing without worrying about going home to a violent lunatic for a change.  
  
“Here we are.” Their waiter Lasalle, a friendly and dexterous beta sporting an undercut and an Old West style lapel vest, popped out a tray stand with one hand and lowered a huge galvanized metal serving tray down onto it with the other, gentle as a cloud. “I believe you had the Chateaubriand for two?”  
  
“That’s us.” Shiro’s eyes were bright as opals.  
  
“Very good sir.” Lasalle set out the steaming vegetables and sauce boats with the flourish of a cardsharp. He snapped on a white glove and sliced the Chateaubriand into six rosy medallions, plated them, and set them before Shiro and Keith, whose eyes had turned as big as the dinner plates.  
  
“Will there be anything else for you sirs?”  
  
“This is perfect for now, thank you,” Shiro said, then started whispering in Keith’s ear something about the sauces in each slipper-shaped pot. Clever of him to save that explanation for himself. When Shiro set out to woo somebody he went to the nines.  
  
“And you serah, are the recipient of the steak burger?”  
  
Lance grinned cheerfully. “I am.”  
  
“An excellent choice, if I may say so.”  
  
“You may,” Lance said with enthusiasm.  
  
Shiro and Keith might be dining on one of the most romantic carnivorous recipes known to the Western hemisphere, but in Lance’s eyes nothing could be more beautiful than the enormous cheeseburger Lasalle set down before him. God bless Shiro for picking up the tab.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*   
  
  
Reda eyeballed Ezer’s chopped steak before cutting into her own rib eye. She’d sent instructions to the cooks to just scare it with fire, and they’d delivered, as the inside was red juicy perfection. Ezer though, man. She wouldn’t take her coffee without an endless list of qualifiers in French, but take her to a place serving prime grade beef and she picks a broiled patty smothered in onions and gravy. Go figure.  
  
“Maybe they’re a triad?” Ezer asked while swirling a forkful of grey beef into her mashed potatoes.  
  
Reda glanced in the bar mirror. She’d told the hostess to go ahead and seat them at a high top in the bar once she saw that she could catch a glimpse of Shirogane’s table in the mirror’s reflection.  
  
“I don’t think so.” Triads were rare. A successful mating bond between more than two people required a careful balance between the dynamics of the participants, and from what she could see, Shirogane and Aguirre were cuddled up eating something fancy schmancy while the omega was chowing down on a burger that seemed to occupy his complete attention. That didn’t scream ‘triad’ to her. “Maybe he’s their surrogate.” That was a more common arrangement, and would go a long way toward explaining what the hell Lorenzo Fernández Diaz was doing in Arizona on the down-low.  
  
“Seems strange to treat him to alcohol and a greasy burger if they're trying to get pregnant. Shirogane’s a nurse, he’d probably want the omega on an alkaline diet.”   
  
This was why Reda liked having Ezer along on cases: she noticed shit like that.   
  
“Are we sure that’s really him?” Ezer asked.  
  
“Oh, yeah.” He had cut off his hair and dressed himself like a regular dude, but that fine bone structure was recognizable even at this distance. Reda had rifled through enough of that law firm’s PR photographs since taking this case that she practically had his profile memorized. “That’s definitely him.”  
  
Ezer slurped root beer. “We gonna follow them?”  
  
“Yup.” That meant they’d have to eat fast and possibly linger over a drink they wouldn’t actually get to consume, but it would be worth it if they found out where Diaz had been squirreled away.  
  
“We can’t force him to testify,” Ezer reminded her.  
  
“I know that.” He could rely on marital privilege, if he cared to use it. Considering he had gone to the trouble of faking his death, he probably wanted to be as far away from Sadak Sendak’s illegal pursuits as possible. “I’m thinking we stake out his hidey hole and see if our guy shows up.”  
  
“What if he doesn’t?”  
  
“Then we approach Diaz and talk him into a sting operation.” Reda took another bite of steak.  
  
Ezer let the straw slip out of her mouth. “You think he’ll go for that?”  
  
“I think he will if we can finagle a witness protection deal for him.”  
  
“Hmm.” Ezer sucked on her straw again. “That could work. He did want to disappear.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*   
  
  


  * _Got a surprise for you when you get home. :)_



  
Lance knew it was borderline rude to read a text under the dinner table, but it was from Matt, and Shiro and Keith were probably too distracted to take notice. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach in anticipation of whatever the night might bring.  
  
A ramekin was set down in front of him, distracting him from hopes of a sweet ending to the day.   
  
“Thanks.” He blushed at Lasalle, who merely winked one green eye and told him to “enjoy,” a reminder he no longer need panic about the ramifications of less than proper behavior in public. Nobody was going to give him any significant trouble over a silly social faux pas. Not anymore.  
  
He picked up his spoon and cracked the caramel on his dessert, glancing at his table-mates, who were sharing an ancho chili brownie à la mode. Keith had ice cream on his nose and Shiro was laughing around a mouthful of brownie. They were ridiculously cute.  
  
Lance savored a spoonful of caramel and custard, grateful again to Shiro for this treat of a meal. He knew Shiro wouldn’t wait much longer to share whatever news had brought him here, so he better take Lasalle’s advice and enjoy while his appetite was still up for it.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*   
  
  
“Please, if you can just tell us the whereabouts of Keith Aguirre.” Miranda tried to convey as much of his sincerity through his voice and expression as he could. “He might be in danger.”  
  
Aguirre’s landlady was intimidatingly beautiful in her anger. “What kind of danger?” she demanded.  
  
The type of danger that he didn’t want to get into over a WhatsApp call, but unfortunately Acciai had gotten on the call first and subsequently gotten the woman’s dander up, so now it was up to Miranda to try to gain her cooperation.   
  
“There is a dangerous man at large who we believe may be stalking an associate of his.” He held up a newspaper photo of Lorenzo Fernández Diaz Sendak for the laptop’s camera. “Have you seen this omega?”  
  
From the second of unveiled surprise on her face, Miranda gathered that she had. She looked over her shoulder and then another individual entered camera range, an older red-haired man with a splendid mustache. “Please explain,” he said.  
  
Miranda sighed and mentally prepared himself to be as convincing as possible without revealing anything that could be detrimental to his case. That would require parting with some information he’d hoped to keep under wraps for a little while longer but there was just nothing else for it. They had good reason to suspect Sendak was in Arizona, had even gotten out a BOLO, but if he’d gone to ground already that might not do much good. The federal agents they’d been working with had gone incommunicado. Miranda had to operate under the assumption that Aguirre and anyone he was with was in imminent peril, and act accordingly.  
  
“We have reason to believe this omega faked his death to escape an abusive marriage...”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*   
  
  
“It’s about your marriage.”  
  
They were back in Keith’s car, sitting in the dark parking lot. Shiro was turned in his seat to face Lance, while Keith sat with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the door handle, probably having an internal debate about how much privacy he should be giving them.  
  
Lance didn’t mind Keith listening in. He already knew enough to fill in the gaps anyway.   
  
“What about it?” He braced himself. It was very much like Shiro to try to soften bad news, so for him to go to this much effort it must be pretty bad.   
  
Shiro looked down, brows furrowed. “There’s a CGIS Agent investigating your- Sendak.”  
  
“Special Agent Miranda,” Lance said.   
  
Shiro looked up in surprise.   
  
“He was quoted in one of the newspaper articles after I jumped overboard,” Lance explained.  
  
“You jumped,” Shiro said slowly. “You never explained exactly how that happened, and I never asked, thinking... ” he trailed off, unwilling to finish that statement. “But you just said that you jumped deliberately off a sailboat.”  
  
“Yes.”   
  
“At sea.” All signs pointed to Shiro gearing up for lecture mode. “In a _storm_.”  
  
“He was going to kill me.” Lance felt a chill admitting it out loud. “Maybe not that particular day, but it wouldn’t have been much longer. He was losing whatever self control he ever had. So yes, I jumped.” He hugged his knees. “It would have riskier for me not to.”  
  
Shiro gripped the headrest on Keith’s seat with his natural hand like it could give him strength. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I believe you and what’s done is done. Jesus. Don’t do anything like that again, you’ll give me heart failure.”   
  
Lance’s lips thinned in a grim facsimile of a smile. “Wasn’t planning on it.”  
  
“Good.” Shiro breathed out a sigh of relief. Keith’s hand crept around the edge of the seat to grip his for a moment. “Glad to hear it. Shit. You’re not gonna like this next part.”  
  
He hadn’t been expecting to like any of it. “Rip off the bandaid.”  
  
Shiro nodded. “You never did like peeling it off slowly.” He looked up and met Lance’s eyes. “Agent Miranda told me they’ve been investigating Sendak for suspected involvement in a human trafficking ring.”  
  
“Human trafficking?!” Lance had been very well aware that Sadak was a bastard but he’d thought the alpha left the worst parts of his character at home. That there was still a grain of naiveté left in him to be shaken loose was an unexpected shock to Lance’s system.  
  
“It gets worse.” Shiro took a deep breath. “He thinks the first person Sendak was involved with trafficking was you.”  
  
“Me?” The knowledge of what must have happened was like jumping in the icy sea all over again, a cold disorienting slap. “Oh no.” Sadak had dealt with Bocar. Just not the way he told it to his bride. “He bought me?!”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*   
  
  
“He’s spilling his guts,” Ezer commented as casually as if she were describing the weather.  
  
“Yup,” Reda agreed.  
  
Reda and Ezer both had directional sound amplifiers plugged into their ears and tuned discreetly out the rental car’s windows. They’d parked in an unlit spot a couple of rows back from Aguirre’s vehicle, so whenever its occupants raised their voices even a little bit they were picking it up loud and clear. It wasn’t admissible in court, but it sure was edifying.  
  
“This case just got a little bit weirder,” Reda added.  
  
“Yup,” Ezer agreed.  
  
Their runaway bride had just become a potential eyewitness for the prosecution. How were they supposed to subpoena a witness who was legally dead? And even if they did get him into protective custody, how were they supposed to compel him to testify against his own spouse?  
  
“Think we ought to call Miranda?”  
  
Reda pondered Ezer’s question. Miranda had been involved with authorizing the death certificate, he could probably expedite amending it. But that didn’t mean they had to hand over the collar if they happened to find Sendak first. Her gut was telling her Sendak was closing in on the omega.  
  
“We’ll call him,” Reda decided, “after we follow the three little pigs home.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*   
  
  
First, Sendak found the bathroom. Without turning on the light he relieved himself and left the seat up. He sniffed all around at Laurel’s towels and bath products. He’d been using cheap shit. And vinegar? Unacceptable. Instead of a proper porcelain bidet, he had a hose to swab his tender parts like the deck of a boat. And the towels! They drooped over the towel bar in clumps like Spanish moss. Sendak refolded them so that the butterfly appliques faced out and the tags were hidden.   
  
Except for the pizza towel. He recognized it immediately and it made him gnash his teeth. Such casual betrayal! It had begun much earlier than he’d had any reason to suspect. But if Laurel liked it so much, then Sendak would see fit to make use of it. It was easily large enough to hide the omega under when it came time to remove him from this place.  
  
He balled up the pizza towel in his fists and followed Laurel’s strongest scent trail into a bedroom facing the backyard. Here, the sweet scent which had teased his nose in the kitchen bloomed like magnolia. In the center of the room, gauzy curtains hung from the ceiling around the silhouette of a bed, clear evidence of a nest that had been built without his alpha’s permission! Sendak lunged toward it, intent on tearing down the affront to his dominance, then lurched to a stop, hands twitching in midair.  
  
It was convenient, as if Laurel had anticipated his needs, knowing that his alpha would come for him even while under the treacherous influence of others. He could breed the omega here, in this nest already made ready for them, then take him home after. Breed him and reclaim him. Yes, that would work. And they would have beautiful pups.  
  
A car door slammed outside. Sendak prowled down the hall. The bedroom facing the front lawn had its hall door closed, and as soon as he opened it Sendak found out why. The smell from the carport lingered here, a miasma of tar, ash and something sour. It was caustic to his sensitized nose but he had to know who was out there. He skulked over to the window and peered out.  
  
It was a neighbor. A reedy man with shaggy hair whistled as he capered away from his fossil of a car up the front walk to another box of a house. Sendak quietly closed the begrimed drapes. He did not want any witnesses to report his presence, even though he was perfectly within his rights to be here.  
  
He could wait here for Laurel. He would be able to see when he came home, and then they would all just see.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*   
  
  
“Why don’t any of them pick up?” Allura swerved around a corner at a speed that made Coran’s hand slip while tapping on his cell phone, accidentally calling up a paused level of Candy Crush. “Don’t they know that phones are for answering?”  
  
“Yes how dare they have lives,” Coran said, but he was worried as well. It was not unusual for any of the young people in question to be busy on a week night. However, all of them being unreachable on the same week night under the alarming circumstances which that Miranda fellow had described? He felt completely justified in dropping in on the residents of Mariposa Lane unannounced.  
  
He also felt completely justified in trying (again) to talk Allura out of throwing herself headlong into danger. Look how well that had worked out so far: he’d had to chase her down the driveway just to let him ride over in the same car.  
  
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. “Remember you promised to wait in the car whilst I just pop in and see what’s what.”  
  
“I promised no such thing.” Allura glanced down at the Audi’s virtual display. Satisfied that she was still going in the right direction, she stepped on the accelerator.  
  
So much for that approach. “Well consider doing it for me. It would ease my mind.”  
  
“And what about my mind?” Allura tossed an indignant look his way, her hair whipping in the wind coming through the open window. “I’m supposed to just sit here waiting for you to return from trying to reason with a rutting maniac all by yourself?”  
  
“You’re being melodramatic.”  
  
“Says the man who doesn’t want me to go into the house with him,” Allura muttered.  
  
“He doesn’t have anything to gain by trying to subdue me.” Assuming it was the rut guiding his actions and not the crazy. “He might with you.” Rutting male alphas had been known to go after female alphas if there were no omegas or beta females near to hand. The mere possibility of it chilled Coran’s blood.  
  
“I can handle myself,” Allura said, but some of her fire had banked.   
  
“I would rather you didn’t have to,” Coran replied.  
  
If Coran had been uneasy thinking about the size and weight difference between Allura and Lance’s ex-mate back at the house, then Allura was probably reflecting on it just now, on their way to a possible confrontation with the man.  
  
Alfor’s ghost preserve them.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*   
  
  
“You sure you’re okay?” Shiro asked for the third time.  
  
They were parked in Lance’s driveway again, the porch lights casting an uneven glow across Keith’s windshield.  
  
“We can go catch a movie if you want,” Keith put in, which was exceedingly kind of him considering he had Shiro in his vehicle with presumably no other plans after they parted company with Lance.  
  
It warmed Lance’s heart after being shaken by the news that his husband had probably haggled for him like a used car. He’d already known Sadak wasn’t a prince among men, and himself not a princess bride, but this was a new low.  
  
“It’s okay,” Lance assured them. “Matt said he was waiting up for me.”  
  
“Who is this Matt and when do I meet him?” Shiro went from date mode to dad mode in 2.5 seconds, it had to be a new record.  
  
“He’s a good guy, I’ve been friends with his sister for a while,” Keith reassured him, “aaand it looks like you’ll be meeting him now because here he comes.”  
  
Sure enough, here came Matt striding across their front lawns, and whatever his surprise was it had put a bounce in his step. Lance hoped his good mood was catching. Matt waved at Keith through the driver’s side window and loped around to the back to let Lance out of the rear compartment.  
  
“Hi,” Lance said as he slid out of the cargo area into Matt’s waiting arms.  
  
“Hey.” Matt swung him onto his feet with graceful ease.  
  
“Hello.” Shiro got out of the passenger’s seat and walked over to them as Keith scrambled out of the driver’s seat to join them.  
  
“Um, Shiro this is Matt.” Lance looked between them. “He’s my neighbor, and um. He’s also my boyfriend?” Lance was sure of his feelings and confident that they were reciprocated, but they hadn’t really had the DTR talk in so many words.  
  
“Yes!” Matt offered Shiro his hand to shake. “I’m his boyfriend.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “Sir.” Smart man. Shiro took the offered hand and gave it a firm shake.  
  
Lance felt like his face could light up the rest of the neighborhood it was glowing so much. He kissed Matt on the cheek, because he could. PDA was allowed between boyfriends.   
  
“Matt, this is Shiro, Dad’s nurse and one of our oldest family friends.” He caught the look Shiro was giving him. “I don’t mean literally old, I mean we’ve known him forever.” Shiro’s eyebrows went up. “Not literally forever just a really long time.” Shiro still looked mildly offended. “In dog years.”  
  
Shiro threw up his hands in defeat. “It’s nice to meet you Matt. Keith vouches for you so I’ll spare you the boyfriend interrogation. I hope you know what you’re in for with this one.”  
  
“Shiro!” Lance wasn’t a sixteen year-old brat looking for naked trouble anymore, and he hadn’t been for quite some time.  
  
“He’s worth it.” Matt put his arm around Lance’s shoulders.  
  
Shiro smiled benevolently at Matt. “Good answer.”  
  
Matt and Lance stood in the yard arm in arm waving at Keith and Shiro as they backed out of Lance’s driveway and zipped away down the lane.  
  
“Off they go to Netflix and chill,” Lance said.  
  
Matt squeezed Lance close against his side. “How about we go watch a video of our own in my backyard?”  
  
“Al fresco?” Ooh la la.  
  
Matt laughed. “Come on, it’s all set up, I’ll show you.”  
  
Lance took Matt’s hand and followed him around the side of his house to his backyard gate. As the front of his own house passed out of view, he noticed the dusty curtains were closed on the front bedroom window. Hadn’t he left those curtains open?  
  



	16. Veritas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My, what big teeth you have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to everyone who has kudoed and commented and bookmarked! You guys are the best.

 

Matt had laid out a picnic blanket in his backyard, and on it rested an open cooler, an assortment of flameless candles and a portable projector. Backyard movie night? It was romantic and thoughtful and oh so sweet. The flameless candles flickered with an electric glow, glinting off the ice, jelly glasses and a jug of sangria in the cooler.  
  
“Wow,” Lance breathed, delighted.  
  
“I just wanted to do something nice for you,” Matt said.  
  
The mysteriously closed front bedroom curtains swept from the forefront of Lance’s mind as Matt used his handhold to gently lower him down onto the blanket. Maybe they’d just fallen shut when he’d closed that bedroom door.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Boy next door, eh?” Reda lowered her close-focusing binoculars.  
  
They had waited for Aguirre to park, then cruised around the block and parked at the curb across the street and one house down. Miraculously, none of Shirogane’s party had taken any notice of them. Reda wasn’t accustomed to staking out civvies. She was all keyed up and ready for action, but the only action taking place was probably in Boy Next Door’s backyard.  
  
“Living the cliche.”  
  
“Well why not?” Ezer was grinning, the romantic goof. “He’s super cute.”  
  
“If you like ‘em floppy-haired and ready for their Tiger Beat photo shoot.”  
  
“You’re so cynical,” Ezer chided. “Betas can be dreamboats too, you know.”  
  
“I wish dreamboat would take Diaz back into the front yard where we can keep a better eye on him.”  
  
They had a pretty good vantage point of Diaz’s front and side yards, but they could only see a slice of his backyard, and nothing of the boyfriend’s backyard.  
  
“I won’t argue with that.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Boyfriend? Boyfriend?! What a ridiculous notion. Laurel was his claimed mate and wedded spouse, he could not have a boyfriend. Even if he could, why in hell would he pick a skinny beta? Why would the alphas who had stolen him away permit such a thing? If they had employed the beta as a eunuch he could understand it, but the words and deeds which Sendak had just witnessed suggested this beta had tasted Laurel’s pleasures as well. Unthinkable! He watched through a crack in the curtains as the beta led his omega by the hand to the backyard of the house next door.  
  
As if drawn by their bond even in its ruined state, Laurel’s gaze swept the front of the house to the window where Sendak lurked behind the curtain, blue eyes cutting through the dim distance between them like an electrical current. Sendak felt a throb in his soul where the bond link should be.  
  
♬ “Your pride has built a wall so strong that I can’t get through.” ♬  
  
The lyrics fell into the empty room like rocks in a reservoir. Sendak’s voice was still raw from roaring and shouting earlier. He fumbled the burner phone out of his pocket, found the song on a video-sharing site and paused it for later.  
  
He moved back down the hall to the kitchen window and looked out into the backyard. Laurel’s enclosure had a chain link fence, but the neighbor had privacy fencing, white with a lattice top. Sendak slipped out the back door and slunk across the yard, staying low until he reached the fence line.  
  
He stood slowly, careful not to let his head clear the top of the fence, until he was able to peer through the lattice into the backyard next door. Laurel was reclined upon a blanket with the beta. They were drinking cheap wine and watching amateur actors in a home video recording projected onto the side of the neighbor’s house. Laurel was singing? And laughing? And so was the beta. Their combined scents wafted on the breeze like mist escaping from a greenhouse.  
  
He’d known Laurel had a sentimental side - he was an omega, after all - but this was unfathomable. If he wanted to attend the opera all he’d need do was seek favor from his very own alpha. Could he really have been lured from his alpha’s side by the promise of silly indulgences? His agreeable, assiduous Laurel?  
  
Sendak’s face contorted in a silent snarl. These mendacious cretins had corrupted him!  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Keith drove through Gilbert’s suburbs at a leisurely speed, savoring Shiro’s delicious scent drifting over him with every shift of the breeze through his open window. The night was still young, stretching before them with sublime possibilities. Hot damn.  
  
Oh, there went Allura in her sparkly blue Audi, driving like she was on the autobahn. He waved at her as she flew by him at the four-way stop.  
  
Wait, what the duck?  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Allura, duckie, I am reasonably sure there are laws against performing a U-turn across a pedestrian refuge island.” Coran maintained an upright and relaxed posture in the passenger’s seat while his knuckles turned white on the oh-shit handle.  
  
“That was Keith!”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“That was the best.” Lance kissed Matt’s laughing mouth. “Thank you!”  
  
“I’m glad you liked it.” Matt kissed him back. He tasted fruity, boozy and perfect.  
  
Lance felt loose-limbed and warm all over. He wanted to feel this way forever, the way that Matt made him feel. Eventually they parted lips and peeked into the sangria jug again. They had been feeding each other apple and orange slices between sips of the wine punch.  
  
“We ate all the fruit,” Matt said as if it was somehow his fault for not thinking to make the sangria eighty percent fruit just because Lance ate fruit like it might cease to exist at any moment.  
  
“I have pear slices in my fridge.” Lance jumped up like a triathlete at the starting gun. “Wait right here, I’ll be right back!”  
  
Matt laughed again. “Baby you don’t have to go, we can just drink the wine.”  
  
“Nope, more fruit, I’ll be back!” Lance did a little hip shimmy and then ran to climb Matt’s apple tree to get back into his own yard.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Pidge let herself into her townhouse and set her paper bag on the tiny kitchen’s fold-down counter (which she always left in the upright position). She lifted a bottle of ale out of the bag, popped the top on the edge of the counter, and took a deep pull. This was a night for sitting on her Post-it-sized back porch with some beer and pleasant thoughts of the punk rock girl whose number she got while standing in line together at the craft brewery. She looked at her arm again, where the pertinent info was written in eyeliner: _Ursula Nicole Lucero 602-***-5309 call me anytime_.  
  
Pidge grinned. She would have taken her out on the town right there on the spot, but Ursula said she had to motor for a work shift and was just buying herself libations to wind down with when she got home later. Soon, though. Pidge had a really good feeling. Her dating sabbatical was a worthy experiment that had arrived at a conclusion.  
  
She opened the sliding glass door and dropped into her ASU tailgate chair. She should call Matt and tell him the good news that maybe soon he’d have a girlfriend-in-law. She pulled out her phone. Damn, forgot to turn notifications back on. What’s this?  
  
What the fuck?!  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
A sparkly blue Audi A3 sped through the residential streets of suburban Gilbert followed closely by a little red Suzuki Samurai. A short, stout man maneuvering a purple hoverboard down the sidewalk hollered, “Share the road!” and was gifted with the response of two middle fingers held outside two driver’s side windows.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Matt lay back on the picnic blanket and gazed up at the stars, enjoying the pleasant buzz from the sangria. When Lance came back they could find constellations together.  
  
His cell phone chimed in his cargo pants pocket. Stretching languorously, he retrieved the phone and smiled when he saw who it was.  
  
“Hey Pidge, thanks again for your help, I owe you one.”  
  
_“Oh thank god, you’re alright!”_  
  
Matt jackknifed straight up into a sitting posture as he heard keys clacking, probably Pidge checking footage from the camera that he still didn’t know where the hell it was.  
  
_“Where’s Lance?”_  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance wrinkled his nose as he hopped onto the porch to the back door. The smell of the musty old carpet seemed to have traveled while he’d been gone. He might have to open all the doors and windows to air the place out. He left the back door wide open behind him.  
  
Gross! The smell was all over the kitchen. Lance opened the kitchen window and crossed quickly to the fridge. He reached in for the bowl of pears he’d left to chill before starting the carpet project which was currently stinking up his house.  
  
He stared in puzzlement at the empty bowl with crinkled-up cellophane inside it as the fridge door fell shut. A dull note of alarm stirred past his wine-induced muddle. Who could have eaten the pears and left the bowl like this? Pidge was perfectly capable of getting into this house any time she pleased, and Coran, and possibly Keith. He couldn’t imagine Coran doing this. Keith maybe, the alpha’s appetite sometimes overcame his manners, but he hadn’t had the opportunity. That left Pidge, who definitely had both the appetite and opportunity, but something about that still didn’t feel right.  
  
Lance’s bladder suddenly decided to remind him of the physical consequences of drinking alcoholic beverages all evening. Distracted, he set the bowl down on the counter and stumbled down the dark hallway toward the bathroom.  
  
The musty smell was in there too. He opened the window without turning on the lights. The seat was already up on the toilet. That was convenient, but had he left it that way? It was not his custom, having grown up in a house with a woman who would make her displeasure known loudly whenever he or Dad forgot. The dull note of alarm was beginning to give way to a shiver at the base of his spine. He flushed and put the seat down and washed his hands, impatient to get out of the house and back to Matt. He shook water off his fingers as he turned to the towel bar to dry them off.  
  
Three blue-winged butterflies fluttered on the towel bar in perfect alignment. There was no way in hell he left them like that. The spare bedroom curtains hadn’t fallen closed by themselves, he had not left the seat up and Pidge hadn’t eaten his pear slices. Chills overtook Lance’s whole body. His breath quickened as the musty smell realigned itself in his mind for what it really was, underneath the foul veneer of odor from the carpet.  
  
Rutting alpha.  
  
♬ _If we’d go again all the way from the start..._ ♬  
  
At the burst of music (from his bedroom, it came from his bedroom) Lance bolted from the bathroom into the hall, sprinting for the open back door.  
  
“oh God, oh God, oh God”  
  
♬ _...the things that killed our love..._ ♬  
  
Before he reached the door, Lance was jerked backward with enough force to send him reeling through the kitchen and into the living room.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Just call him first, okay?” Pidge barely stopped long enough to lock the front door behind her before running for the RAV4. “Just call before you go storming over there.”  
  
_“I’ll call first.”_ Matt’s voice had a little warble like he was talking while moving.  
  
**“Promise!”** Pidge put as much command into her voice as she could, backing out of her assigned carport with a screech of tires.  
  
_“Fuck! I promise, okay?”_  
  
Then the little asshole cut the connection.  
  
“God damn it!”  
  
Pidge docked her phone in the miracast adapter, where it immediately began pinging with possible rut warning alerts coming from Lance’s living room.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
♬ _Yes I’ve hurt your pride, and I know what you’ve been through..._ ♬  
  
If there was one thing Lance had learned from years of being thrown like a hacky sack, it was how to roll. He landed on his side, barely avoiding crashing into his bicycle parked against the wall, and rolled to his feet with his eyes on the front door. He got one hand on the knob before he was jerked back again, this time against a painfully familiar hard chest.  
  
♬ _...this can’t be the end..._ ♬  
  
“Laurel.” Sadak rumbled deep, deeper than Lance had ever heard from him before. His rut scent billowed around them, a musk as thick and pungent as swamp fog. “Why have you run from my protection and forsaken your wedding vows?”  
  
“My - ?” Lance gasped out a hysterical laugh. “Are you serious?” Rage curdled in his marrow. “Your vows were lies, you bought me!” He thrust his sharp elbow back as hard as he could, hitting ribs and hopefully Sadak’s liver.  
  
Sadak yowled and threw Lance away from him like a hot coal. He landed in a sprawl across his cushionless couch, aggravating new and old injuries on his hips.  
  
“Is that how they convinced you to leave my side?” Sadak’s mismatched eyes were full-bore crazy. “By telling you this filth?”  
  
“I made up my own mind!” Lance shouted from the hard couch. “Are you going to try to tell me it’s not true?! I’ll know if you lie to me!” He hadn’t immediately recognized the smell of Sadak’s rut, having never been permitted to be around it before, but he had his scent now.  
  
Sadak seemed to know that as well. “I did what I had to do!” he bellowed. “Your father promised you to an old man in Cuba, would you have rather been given to an eighty year-old who was left on the shelf?!”  
  
“That man is not my father, you son of a bitch!”  
  
Lance’s phone rang from his jacket pocket, bringing the argument to an abrupt halt.  
  
“You may answer,” Sadak said, “but keep in mind when you speak that you are still my omega.” He reached into his own pocket and took out a semi-automatic pistol.  
  
Lance swallowed thickly. Keeping his eyes on the gun in Sadak’s hand, he answered the call.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
_“Lance! Oh thank God, are you okay?”_  
  
Matt. Lance felt tears slide down his cheeks thinking of all the experiences he’d wanted to have with Matt that he would never get the chance to fulfill. Sadak was over the edge, and now that there was a gun in the equation Lance’s odds of making it out of this house alive were dismal.  
  
But he could still do one thing. Oh, such a gift he’d been given. He wouldn’t waste it.  
  
“Me estoy enamorando de ti.”  
  
Sadak didn’t speak a word of Spanish, but Matt did. Whatever happened next, Lance didn't want to leave Matt with any doubts that they'd been on the cusp of something real.  
  
“Goodbye.”  
  
_“Lance! Wait, what-”_  
  
Lance disconnected.  
  
“Very good, omega.” Sadak definitely hadn’t a clue of what Lance just said. “Now come to me. We will use your nest and make beautiful pups.”  
  
Bile rose in Lance’s throat at the suggestion, but before he could even rise to his feet, there was a chestnut-haired blur hurtling into Sadak’s side.  
  
“Matt!” Lance screamed, launching himself off the couch. Matt must have called him from the back yard.  
  
Roaring, Sadak gripped Matt around the shoulders and slammed him into the living room wall with a sickening thud.  
  
“Get off him!” Lance barrelled into Sadak’s back and landed a solid hit to one of his kidneys before he was thrown over Sadak’s shoulder. Fucking hell, his rut had turned him into the Terminator. Lance fought vertigo trying to push himself up off the floor.  
  
Matt was already staggering back to his feet. He threw a punch that would have seriously hurt anybody but Sadak right at that particular moment. Sadak took the punch squarely on the jaw and threw one of his own augmented by the butt of the gun. Matt fell across the topless coffee table, which creaked ominously but did not collapse. He groaned and scrabbled for purchase to try to lever himself up off the rattan.  
  
Sadak stood over him with the gun in his extended hand.  
  
“No!” Lance lurched over and latched onto Sadak’s arm. “Please!”  
  
Sadak gripped Lance tightly in his arms, shoving his face into Lance’s neck, the gun a hard weight against the small of his back. “Your appeals for this beta will be honored so long as you behave yourself in a manner becoming of an omega.” Sadak breathed deep of Lance’s remaining intact primary scent gland. “You will be my omega and bear my pups.” Sadak’s lips peeled back and Lance could feel the smooth front of his incisors against his unmarked flesh.  
  
“Lance,” Matt moaned, still trying to regain his balance against what was probably a concussion.  
  
Sadak growled and lifted his head. “Why does he call you by that name?”  
  
“Because.” Lance sobbed, knowing that Matt would not give up trying to save him so long as he was conscious, and that meant he was still in danger.  
  
Besides, Sadak’s promises had never been worth shit.  
  
“Because it’s mine!” With that, Lance jerked up his knee and got a good one right in Sadak’s giant, rut-swollen testicles. Sadak reacted instantly, bending over and clutching at his abdomen, and dropping the gun.  
  
It went skittering back towards the kitchen. Lance lunged after it and Sadak lunged after him. He caught Lance on one sore hip, sending him in a forward plunge and this time he did hit the bicycle, resulting in the bike landing on his legs when he collided with the floor.  
  
Yelping against the sharp discomfort of the spokes catching on his jeans, Lance hauled himself out from under the bicycle and belly crawled for the gun. Behind him, he heard crashing and Sadak grunting. He got his hands on the pistol, twisted onto his back and fired a warning shot at the ceiling.  
  
Gypsum rained down around Sadak’s surprised face as he froze in the act of shoving the bicycle out of his path.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Reda and Ezer sat up out of their bored slouches when they heard the flat boom come from inside Diaz’s house.  
  
“That was not a tire backfiring,” Ezer said. “Or fireworks.” They both knew the difference between a gunshot and any other similar noise.  
  
“That sounded like reasonable grounds to me,” Reda replied, opening her car door.  
  
“Me too.”  
  
If somebody inside that house was in danger then they didn’t need a warrant to gain entry.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Allura took a wide right turn onto Mariposa Lane to avoid slowing down, with Keith right on her bumper.  
  
Up ahead, two women sprinted across the street and into the side yard of the Balmer house.  
  
“Who in the bloody hell is that?” Coran was past pretending to be calm.  
  
The air split with a crack like thunder.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance grit his teeth against the pain from sprained ligaments as he levered himself up on one knee using only his legs and abdominal muscles. He pushed himself to his feet without taking his hands off the gun or his eyes off Sadak. His ears were still ringing from the warning shot.  
  
“What will you do now, lovely?” Sadak had the audacity to smirk at him. “Call the police? You’ll have to explain to them how you’ve abandoned your place at your alpha’s side, and what do you suppose will happen then?”  
  
“I imagine they’ll be more interested in talking to you than to me,” Lance said, “seeing as how you’ve been helping Bocar run his illegal cottage industry that he started with his dick.”  
  
“Such filthy language!” Sadak’s face blanched with fury out of all proportion to what he was claiming to be angry about. “You are out of bounds, omega!”  
  
“I’m out of bounds?” Indignation licked through Lance like flames. “You buy me like a brood mare, beat me, starve me, rape me, help the man who killed my mother to sell more people, and you hurt my friends, but I’m out of bounds?!”  
  
“But Laurel, I love you.” Sadak declared his love as if it was the balm that would heal all of the considerable damage he’d done. He even looked like he meant it.  
  
“I’m not Laurel,” Lance said. “That person never existed anywhere but inside your head.”  
  
“How dare you!” Sadak’s mouth formed a rictus of grief, and Lance wondered just for a moment if he’d demonstrated this much emotion when he’d actually thought Lance was dead. “If I can’t have love, then neither can you!”  
  
Lance had been expecting a threat like that, was ready for a direct attack to follow. He was not ready for that attack to be on anyone other than himself. Matt had just managed to get back on his feet by crawling over to the wall and leaning on it, when Sadak hauled him back by the shoulders, mouth agape, teeth bared for the bite.  
  
“No!” Without thinking, Lance aimed and fired.  
  
The bullet hit Sadak in his bulging bicep; his arm spasmed and with a howl of agony he released Matt to clutch it. Matt fell forward, landing in a heap.  
  
“Matt!”

Lance could barely hear his own voice after two shots fired at close range. He was circling around the downed bicycle in an effort to reach Matt's side when he felt a push against his shoulder hard enough to knock him off his feet. As the world tilted sideways, he realized that in his haste he’d forgotten to keep Sadak’s position in his direct line of sight. He landed on the coffee table, which could not withstand a second impact and sent him crashing to the floor.  
  
The alpha dropped to his knees to scoop up the gun in his good hand and aim it at the omega lying dazed in the rubble. Lance stared up into the barrel that would send him to his mother. He thought he heard Matt shouting his name.  
  
Something boomed, loud, and then Sadak spun in a semicircle and fell back.  
  
Lance was still alive. The air tasted sour and his heartbeat thumped like a seaplane’s floats on rough water. Then Matt was at his side, trying to help him sit up.  
  
In the entryway from the kitchen stood a woman with a wedge haircut, tall and muscular with a gun in her hands, hollering at Sadak to drop it and stay the fuck down. At least that’s what Lance thought she was saying over the roaring in his eardrums. She advanced slowly into the living room as another woman, slimmer with a high ponytail, crouched to cover her from the kitchen entrance. Something caused the skinny woman to look behind her and return to the back door while the tall woman none-too-gently rolled Sadak onto his stomach to cuff him.  
  
Warm hands caressed Lance’s cheeks, his forehead. He looked up into Matt’s tear-stained face.  
  
“Te quiero.”  
  
He was not sure which of them said it first, even when he searched his memories of the moment later on. It might have been both of them at once. Matt guided him to rest his thundering head against the soft crease of his neck. They held onto each other and held each other up until the emergency medical technicians were allowed to come in to tend them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me estoy enamorando de ti - "I'm falling in love with you."
> 
> Te quiero - There are multiple ways to say "I love you" in Spanish, with different contextual implications. This way seemed the most appropriate between two people who are saying it for the first time.
> 
> This is where the movie ended, but that ending always bugged me. It wouldn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out her real identity, once the husband had been identified. Even if the heroine was lucky enough to get the cops from "Friend Request" to respond to her 911 call, she would still have to deal with living in the house where all of that happened. (Sometimes I wonder if the screenwriter who wrote "100 Feet" was pondering about the same thing).
> 
> Needless to say, I decided to extend the story further beyond this point. There is another confrontation in Lance's future.


	17. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody goes to the emergency room, but they get split up to different hospitals. Information is shared among several parties, and Lance gets confirmation that he is technically not an only child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for the kudos! I drafted this chapter before season 7 dropped, and had finished editing it before "Lance's Story" was released, so it's pretty AU in certain regards.

 

Pidge arrived upon a scene of chaotic activity. She parked illegally on the street because she couldn’t get around the emergency vehicles to park in her brother’s driveway. Something in the air smelled sharp like vinegar. Blue and red lights cut through the dark, and static hiss erupted from two-way radios as uniformed people spoke into them way too calmly for the situation Pidge was seeing. She sprang from the hybrid and hit the ground running.  
  
“Matt!”  
  
“Serah, I’m going to have to ask you to step back.” A uniformed police officer tried to bar Pidge’s path.  
  
“My brother, where is my brother? Matt!”  
  
“Pidge!”  
  
“Keith?” Pidge peered around the beta officer’s broad shoulders. “Keith!”  
  
“You don’t know how glad I am to see you.” He ran up, ignoring the officer. “Matt won’t get in the ambulance.”  
  
“Why does Matt need an ambulance?!”  
  
After some rushed explanations between Pidge, Keith and Officer Newley, Pidge got an escort to go and try to talk her pigheaded brother into getting in an ambulance to treat a concussion along with multiple contusions and abrasions. The EMTs explained that the ER would probably also want to run some tests to be on the safe side, which was fine with Pidge but not with Matt, who on top of everything else was still cross at Pidge for trying to use a command voice on him.  
  
It wasn’t like it was even an exclusively alpha privilege anyway, any dynamic could manage it with the right cocktail of adrenaline and dopamine flooding their bloodstream. Alphas just didn’t need an extra boost, but was that really her fault? Pidge had been so relieved to see live footage of Matt safely relaxing in his backyard, and then tensed right up again when she’d found the still of Lance climbing the tree from several minutes before that. That was when she knew that whatever trouble was brewing, her brother was going to throw himself into the thick of it before she could get there.  
  
“I want to ride with Lance,” he insisted.  
  
His poor face. He was rapidly developing a shiner that was bound to send Ma into paroxysms as soon as she saw it. Apparently the first officers on the scene had put Lance in another ambulance and insisted on keeping him sequestered. Pidge didn’t like it either, but that didn’t change the fact that Matt needed medical attention which he was trying to refuse.  
  
“You’re going to the same hospital, right?” She looked to the EMTs. “Right?”  
  
One of them, a young spiky-haired beta who had introduced himself as Daniel, admitted, “I don’t know. We’re going to Mercy, but if the federal agent wants to go to a different hospital they’ll go to a different hospital.”  
  
Well fuck that noise.  
  
Pidge stalked over to the beta lady with the ruby red ponytail who had been pointed out to her. “Hey.”  
  
“Well, hello there.” Ponytail had an open, friendly expression but her light blue eyes were sharp as arrows. Her licorice scent was hard to read.  
  
“Where are you taking Lance?”  
  
Ponytail’s thin black eyebrows went up behind her vampy bangs. “To the hospital.”  
  
Really lady? “Which hospital?”  
  
Ponytail smiled. It was not an unfriendly smile. Neither was it accommodating. “That’s need-to-know information.”  
  
“Yeah?” Pidge folded her arms. “Well I need to know.”  
  
“Are you Matt’s sister?” A tall good-looking alpha with a scar on his nose stepped up to them. “Keith’s friend?”  
  
“What’s it to you?”  
  
He put his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. One of them was an advanced prosthetic, and if Pidge wasn’t ready to tear her hair out trying to get Matt on an ambulance she’d be all over that, asking questions.  
  
“I’m Shiro,” he said. “I’m going in the ambulance with Lo- Lance.” He looked at Ponytail like he was daring her to contradict him. “You can tell Matt not to worry, I’ll stay with him.” He smiled at Pidge winningly. “And if you would let Keith know too, I’d sure appreciate it.”  
  
A smidgen of a prior conversation surfaced in Pidge’s memory. “You’re the mad hot man of Keith’s dreams.”  
  
Shiro’s charming smile turned full-on goofy. “Did he really say that?”  
  
Pidge rolled her eyes. “I’ll tell them. You better call as soon as you know something.”  
  
“I will,” he said. “I promise.”  
  
If he was as stuck on Keith as he seemed to be, Pidge felt reassured that he would make an effort to keep that promise. She hoped that was enough to convince Matt to go to the emergency room.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Don’t worry he’s fully sedated.” The ER nurse, an auburn-haired chick named Debbie, was ready to wheel Sendak over to surgery. The paramedics had stopped his external bleeding with trauma pads during the ambulance ride over to the public hospital.  
  
“He’s a suspect in several major crimes and in full rut besides,” Reda replied, “so pardon me if I worry.”  
  
The ‘full rut’ part got the beta’s attention. “Oh! Um, okay, come with me then, I’ll get you cleared for observation.” Sedatives were notoriously unpredictable on rutting alpha primes, and so were the stunners most orderlies carried.  
  
Reda followed Debbie and the orderly helping her push Sendak’s gurney out of the trauma center towards the operating theater, and not a moment too soon. As they passed the safety glass windows, Reda caught a glimpse of Special Agent Miranda striding across the parking lot towards the ER’s main entrance.  
  
She knew he wanted to talk to Sendak, but she wanted first crack at him. She hoped Ezer wasn’t having too much trouble getting Diaz secured.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance catalogued the ceiling of the ambulance, which was the only thing he could see easily. Vents, hooks, grab rails, LED lights, and overhead cubbies. Same as the last time he let his bleary gaze drift over the ceiling. It felt like the back of his head was slowly becoming one with the backboard.  
  
Earlier, after the EMTs had put the cervical collar on him and were trying to placate Shiro, who was loudly questioning the necessity of strapping him onto a spinal board, Coran had leaned over his stretcher to whisper urgently.  
  
_“You cannot legally be forced to testify against your own spouse. That gives you a bargaining chip, should you require one.”_  
  
Then Coran had been shooed off, Lance had been loaded onto the ambulance, and here he lay ever since, anxious and alone. Why would he need a bargaining chip? What was happening to Matt? How long until he could see him again?  
  
The ambulance doors opened with a clatter, admitting the younger EMT, the federal agent with the ponytail, and-  
  
“Shiro!”  
  
“Hey, kid.” Shiro took a seat on the crew bench and leaned forward to grip Lance’s hand. “I’m riding over with you. Hope you don’t mind.”  
  
“Thanks Shiro.” Tears slipped out of the corners of Lance’s eyes and he was too exhausted to be embarrassed about it. “Is Matt okay?”  
  
“He’s okay.” Shiro squeezed Lance’s hand. “Everything’s going to be okay.”  
  
As the ambulance pitched and rolled into motion, Lance hoped Shiro was right.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
After a ridiculous amount of convincing, Matt had been persuaded to let the EMTs take him to the Catholic hospital. He’d been taken back for triage while Pidge and Keith were made to wait in a room decorated in faded shades of green, which was where they still were when Sam and Colleen Holt came rushing in.  
  
“Where is he?”  
  
“Is he okay?”  
  
“Holt family?” A bearded guy in a white lab coat stood in an open door leading out of the waiting room into restricted areas of the hospital.  
  
“That’s us.” Pidge leapt up off the vinyl couch she was sharing with Keith.  
  
“I’m Dr. Gorman, Matthew’s physician this evening. Come on back to the observation unit, he’s asking for you.”  
  
They all followed the doctor through the door, past a nurse’s station and down a Berber-carpeted hall.  
  
“Is he okay?” Colleen asked again.  
  
The doctor looked back over his shoulder. “He’s doing great, I think we’ll be able to release him tonight, actually. We’re just waiting on one more test.”  
  
He led them into a room cordoned into several curtained-off spaces. In each space was a gatch bed with a patient, occasionally revealed when a nurse or visitor parted the curtain. Matt was the farthest one in, resting under a blanket and wearing a cotton gown. He was hooked up to oxygen and heartrate monitors and he was looking decidedly out of sorts.  
  
“Saints preserve us!” Colleen rushed forward to frame Matt’s bruised-up face with her hands. "Again?"  
  
“Aw, Ma.”  
  
“Wow.” Pidge leaned over her mother’s shoulder. “What, did you decide the sides of your face should match?”  
  
Matt glowered at her. “Very funny.”  
  
Keith got a closer look at Matt under the unforgiving overhead lights.  
  
“Damn, dude.”  
  
Since they’d seen him last, before the ambulance driver made him and Pidge sit up front, the bruising around Matt’s right eye socket had developed from rosy to deep purple and his cheek had swollen up like a plum.  
  
“We’ve given him an analgesic for the pain,” said Dr. Gorman. “His bloodwork and X-Rays look good. He’s extremely fortunate that his cheekbone isn’t broken. We’re just waiting for his CT scan to come back-”  
  
“¡Dios mío!”  
  
“Ma!”  
  
“-but if all is well, I’ll be releasing him to bed rest within the next few hours.”  
  
“You’ll be coming home with us, son,” said Sam, with a crossed-arm posture that reminded Keith of Pidge.  
  
Matt raised himself up from the pillow to meet Keith’s eyes. “Please tell me you’ve heard from Shiro about Lance.”  
  
“Sorry man.” Keith hunched his shoulders. “Nothing yet.”  
  
This was turning out to be a much more eventful night than he’d anticipated, and not in any of the ways that he’d hoped.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Agent Ezer had directed the ambulance drivers to an acute care facility that was a satellite of a regional healthcare network, housed in a gleaming postmodern building. The interior looked equally cutting-edge, but their budget did not extend to comfortable waiting rooms. Instead, visitors were highly encouraged to wait in a coffee shop which served overpriced refreshments.  
  
Shiro wasn’t hungry and he wasn’t leaving Lance until he was sure of the agent’s intentions.  
  
Ezer was definitely calling the shots. She managed to register Lance before they even arrived at the ER, then demanded a private room when they got there. They’d been led to a spacious room done in soothing shades of lilac, which Ezer had nixed due to it being on the ground floor with a huge window. After some wrangling, they finally settled Lance into an upper floor room with a tiny window which Ezer immediately pulled the privacy shade over. Based on the pastel prints, rocking chair and large walk-in shower, Shiro had a notion they’d been given a maternity suite. He hoped they weren’t taking it away from an actual expectant mother.  
  
He turned his gaze to the electric bed where Lance had just been transferred. His complexion had turned wan and he looked strikingly like his stepfather, making it easier for Shiro to start thinking of him by the same name.  
  
“I hope we aren’t taking this room from someone who needs it,” Lance said, picking at his fingernails fitfully. They still had pink polish on them.  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Ezer said, finishing her circuit of the room and evidently satisfied this time.  
  
There was a brisk knock on the door, and then a good-looking alpha in a white lab coat entered the room without waiting for an acknowledgment.  
  
“Who are you?” Ezer demanded.  
  
“I’m Dr. Hawkins.” Hawkins’s sharp, clean snowdrift scent turned extra frosty. “I’m here to examine my patient.”  
  
“Sorry doc, just making sure.” Ezer’s posture took on an appearance of being relaxed, but she couldn’t hide the minute areas of tension from a nurse with Shiro’s specialty. “This omega witnessed a crime and we need to keep him safe.”  
  
So that’s what this cloak and dagger business was about. Coran had been right.  
  
Hawkins pulled up a pneumatic stool to Lance’s bedside and sat down. “I’ll be your doctor during your stay in my unit. I wish we were meeting under happier circumstances but I promise I’ll do my best by you while you’re here.”  
  
This doctor seemed a bit territorial, which wasn’t really all that unusual in an alpha doctor, but he had good bedside manner and hadn’t allowed the momentary tension with the agent to interfere with his duty to his patient. That was encouraging.  
  
“Can Shiro stay?” Lance asked. Two pairs of eyes turned to assess Shiro, who had elected to stay out of the way by holding up a wall. “He’s my dad’s nurse and I trust him.”  
  
This could be tricky. Shiro was not affiliated with this hospital, nor was he a specialist in emergency medicine. Dr. Hawkins’s brown eyes took a quick measure and then he smiled and said, “If you trust him then I don’t see why not.”  
  
He nodded his thanks to Hawkins as Ezer folded her arms and huffed out an irritated breath. Shiro was going to have to try to get a message to Keith right under her nose. Unless she retained water like a camel, she would have to go pee eventually.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Keith’s phone chimed as he waited in the porte-cochere with the rest of the Holts for Sam to bring his minivan around. He fumbled the phone out of his pocket while Matt leaned forward out of his borrowed wheelchair in eager interest.  
  
“Is it Shiro?” Matt had been waiting as impatiently as Keith had.  
  
“He just texted me which hospital they’re at,” Keith confirmed. “And he also said to tell Coran he was right?”  
  
“What does that mean?”  
  
“I don’t know, but I’m gonna find out.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Oh dear.” Coran paced on the front lawn of the Balmer house. “I was afraid of that.”  
  
As the homeowner of record, the officers conducting the protective sweep couldn’t kick him off the property so long as he kept out of their way. At least, until such point as they obtained a warrant, which, based on what Keith had just told him, seemed likely to happen sooner rather than later. Waiting on the warrant was probably why they were taking so bloody long in there.  
  
_“Afraid of what? What’s going on, Coran?”_   Then Coran heard fumbling and _“will you just let me talk?”_  
  
Coran couldn’t help but smile. Matthew might appear mild-mannered at first blush but he could be quite assertive in his own right. But oh, young Lance was in a right pickle.  
  
“Essentially, Lance is a witness in what I suspect to be a criminal case with a much bigger fish on the line than his ex-mate.”  
  
_“Lance accused him of helping someone sell people.”_  
  
This was Matthew speaking now. The slight echo on the line told Coran that Keith had decided to compromise by putting them on speaker. The sounds of a rumbling engine and traffic indicated they were in a moving vehicle.  
  
“When I told Mr. Shirogane that a Special Agent Miranda had warned us that you lot were danger, he in turn told me that Agent Miranda had been investigating Sendak on suspicion of being involved in something extraordinarily unsavory.”  
  
_“Shiro said Miranda told him that Lance was a human trafficking victim,”_ Keith said.  
  
_“Lance said pretty much the same thing during the fight.”_   Matthew sounded uncharacteristically somber.  
  
“Well that’s why Lance has been separated from us now.” Coran stopped pacing to keep his eyes on the house. “I believe those agents think his testimony could be very valuable.”  
  
_“That’s not bad though, right?”_  
  
Coran recognized the distinctive voice of the young female alpha who sometimes came over to study with Keith. Katherine, but she went by a nickname, Pigeon or something similar. Allura had asked her about her intentions regarding Keith once, and Pigeon had informed her that she preferred women but she was enjoying a break from the dating scene. Allura had been dating that insufferable Sinclair Cline fellow at the time. Coran sometimes wondered if Pigeon’s words had inspired Allura to finally break it off with that arsehole.  
  
_“I mean, he’d be helping put away the people who harmed him, wouldn’t he?”_  
  
“He would be providing testimony that could put his own life in danger,” Coran explained. “These agents may attempt to keep him in protective custody until they’ve obtained what they need from him.”  
  
_“And then what?”_  
  
“If the organization they’re chasing is dangerous and far-reaching enough,” and given how much trouble these agents had gone to, that seemed a likely possibility, “then the Witness Protection Program might be on offer.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“No.” Lance shrank into the light blue hospital bedding. “I’m not leaving here, I don’t want to be anybody else but who I am now.”  
  
“It’s the only surefire way to keep you safe.”  
  
Agent Ezer had wasted no time making her pitch as soon as Shiro closed the bathroom door and turned on the fan. She wanted Lance to testify against Sadak and Bocar, and then they’d give him a new identity in an undisclosed location. If only they had approached him with this before he’d left on his own. He stood to lose what remained that was precious to him if he accepted her proposal now.  
  
“I want to help you put them away.” The thought of either of them getting away with what they’d done was grievous. “But I don’t want to leave town with a new identity and I don’t think I know anything about Bocar that would help you.” He’d never made an effort to know anything about Bocar. If he could forget the man existed entirely, he would.  
  
“What about Sendak?”  
  
“He kept a lot of things from me.” Lance frowned. “I realize it sounds stupid now, but I didn’t know he was courting me under false pretenses.”  
  
“Sometimes people pick up things they didn’t realize they knew, just by being around a criminal.” Ezer sat on the bed and leaned forward with an elbow on her knee. “We could tease it out of you on examination.”  
  
“No you can’t.” Lance sighed. “Whatever else he is, he’s still legally my husband.” Unfortunately.  
  
Ezer scowled in frustration, then stood and stepped out into the hall with her cell phone in her hand.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Agent Zielenski had come out of her interview with the suspect griping about him being a “knot head.” Miranda did not find Sadak Sendak to be any more amenable to speaking with him than Zielenski had.  
  
Sendak had been stabilized and put in medical restraints. He was drugged but lucid, or at least as lucid as a crazy alpha in full rut could hope to be. It galled Miranda, because that meant Sendak could put forth a credible insanity defense, which also meant he’d have less motive to turn on Drago Bosque Bocar. Sendak spent the entire interview demanding access to his omega. Miranda was sure the omega in question would sooner put another bullet in his erstwhile husband than see to his needs.  
  
He stepped out of the exam room that had been hurriedly made ready to board a violent suspect to find Zielenski pacing up and down the hall with her cell phone to her ear.  
  
“Are you serious? That was our best offer! What the hell else could he want? What do you mean nothing, he’s got to want something. I don’t care what he says, he’s not standing by his man, there’s got to be another angle. What?”  
  
That last was addressed to Miranda, who contritely dropped his hand from her shoulder. “If you’re talking about the omega prime,” he said, “I might be able to help you.”  
  
“If you’re thinking about offering him witness protection, forget it.” She threw up her hands. “He turned it down. Can you believe that shit?”  
  
In point of fact, he could believe that shit. Zielenski was a gifted investigator, but she’d been so focused on getting into Sendak’s head that she’d missed an important detail about what motivated his soon-to-be-former spouse.  
  
“Just let me try. You’ve got nothing to lose.”  
  
Zielenski thought about it a moment and then shrugged. “You got me there.” She put the phone back to her ear to set it up with her partner.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“I appreciate you giving me a lift.”  
  
The warrant had gone through which meant there was little reason for Coran to continue hanging around the Balmer house. Whatever they were searching for could take hours and it was already quite late. Allura had gone to meet with one of her father’s old friends who specialized in family law, in hopes of learning something that might help the situation. Coran had been expecting to either overnight in the Balmer house if the police left, or call a cab if they didn’t.  
  
Luckily for Coran, the Holts had arrived so that Pigeon could retrieve her vehicle and Matthew’s parents could pack up a few of his things before taking him home with them to recuperate. They’d brought Keith with them to pick up his own vehicle, and as Coran’s CRV was still at Allura’s place, it only made sense for him to hitch a ride home with Keith.  
  
“It’s no problem,” Keith said. He seemed kind of glum.  
  
That’s right, he’d had a hot date with Mr. Shirogane that had been rudely interrupted by the evening’s terrible doings. Keith had chosen an upstanding man for himself in Mr. Shirogane. Coran heartily approved.  
  
“If we could just make a quick stop to visit with young Lance on the way home, I would be most grateful.”  
  
Keith looked up in surprise.  
  
“I just want to see with my own eyes that he’s alright, and relay to him that Matthew is on the mend.”  
  
“Oh! Right, sure! No problem, let’s go.”  
  
And if they also visited with Mr. Shirogane during their errand, that would be perfectly fine with Coran too.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”  
  
“You say that as if I really had a choice.”  
  
Miranda held his tongue. It was distressing that the omega didn’t trust him, but not entirely unexpected, especially since he’d had to eject everyone else from the room, including Shirogane.  
  
“Nevertheless.”  
  
“I don’t know what you could possibly say to change my mind.” The omega - Lance, as he was asking to be called - was pale and bruised but this did not lessen the visual impact of his chin lifted in resolve. If anything, it underscored it.  
  
“It won’t be me speaking.”  
  
Miranda ignored Lance’s look of confusion and finished connecting the call on the heavily encrypted video app. This app was a pain in the ass to use and Miranda objected to it on principal, preferring the accountability built into having his conversations potentially become public record. Unfortunately in this case it was necessary.  
  
“Good to see you,” he said when the call was answered. It wasn’t just a friendly greeting. It was a code that let the recipient know it was really him calling and he wasn’t calling under duress.  
  
_“You are looking well.”_ That was the code that let Miranda know his protected witnesses were doing as well as could be expected under the circumstances, and that it was safe to continue the call.  
  
Miranda expanded the app to full-screen and turned the laptop around so that the screen was facing Lance.  
  
“Lance, I’d like you to meet three of your half-siblings. Veronica, Marco, Luis - meet your half-brother Lance.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance blinked at the three youthful faces on the other side of the screen. Three identical pairs of blue eyes blinked back at him.  
  
_“I’m a boy,”_   said the smallest one, defiantly, as if he wasn’t expecting Lance to abide by his statement. The missing canine teeth indicated he was about ten or eleven years-old. Lance had looked almost exactly like this child at the same age.  
  
_“Luis is a boy,”_ confirmed the young woman, who by process of elimination must be Veronica. Her curly dark hair was very similar to his own, including looking like it had been cut with sewing shears, except hers was lopped off at the length Lance used to wear his. Her chin was pointier and her skin tone cooler but otherwise she looked so much like Lance that between her and the child, he could no longer deny to himself that Bocar must have contributed to his own genetic makeup.  
  
_“He is boy,”_ agreed the young man with a nod. Like Lance, he was a noodle person, one of the more prototypical omega male body types. His hair also looked a lot like Lance’s in texture, a voluminous type 2C, but it was a lighter shade of mahogany brown. His skin was nearly as fair as Matt’s. If the little boy was Luis, then this must be Marco.  
  
“I’m Lance,” he swallowed around a lump in his throat, “and I am very honored to meet you all.”  
  
Veronica told a story that was heartrendingly familiar in some respects, and felt like someone had walked over Lance’s grave in others. She had been promised to a ranking alpha shortly after birth and sent to an orphanage that was really a training facility run by Bocar, or BoBo as everyone called him behind his back. It was a place that Lance would have also probably been sent eventually if his mother had not chosen to make a run for it. There, they trained BoBo’s daughters, and the occasional son, on how to behave as skilled house minders and proper obedient mates.  
  
When Veronica had presented as alpha, the elderly alpha she’d been promised to reneged on the bride price. Some male alphas, the sort who would buy a wife, were very old-fashioned. They would not marry an alpha female unless she came with a family alliance. To secure an alliance for Veronica would have required BoBo to acknowledge her. He refused to do so, deciding he could get his investment back by selling her to one of his new contacts in the sex tourism industry instead. Around the same time a much younger child named Luisa had begun making waves by informing his trainers in no uncertain terms that he was not a little girl. BoBo decided to rid himself of two problems by selling them both to the same buyer.  
  
Then the arrogant jackass had phone conversations with his contact in front of members of the orphanage’s staff, who gossiped about it in Veronica’s hearing. Female alphas had greater agency than women of other dynamics in nearly every culture and Cuban society was no different in that regard, which Veronica had figured out despite the cloistered conditions at the orphanage. She decided to take Luis and escape, traveling up the coast and then joining up with a group of balseros who made it to Miami on milder weather than had afflicted Lance’s group.  
  
It was chasing the two of them that had brought BoBo to Miami and subsequently brought Lance’s existence to his attention, when a P.I.’s facial recognition search of local school yearbooks turned up a hit on Lance instead of Luisa. Lance couldn’t find it in himself to fault Veronica for doing what she had to do, even though it had indirectly led to his own troubles. He felt sure he would have done the same in her circumstances.  
  
Marco’s story was a bit different. He had not been taken from his Ukrainian-born mother until he presented as omega. Lance got the definite sense that he would welcome being reunited with her if he ever had the chance. He was brought to the orphanage for training, and then smuggled into Boston Harbor in a shipping container, presumably to be delivered to an alpha. There was little doubt in Lance’s mind that Sadak had somehow been involved in this, and he felt any remaining germ of feeling for the man that might have been lurking in the darkest recesses of his heart shrivel up and die. How could Sadak have slept soundly by his omega’s side every night knowing he had taken part in such things?  
  
Marco, left too long in the container and desperate for fresh air and water, managed to MacGyver himself out using the vents that had been modified specifically to permit him to survive the trip, but upon emerging found himself in a strange place where the language everyone around him was speaking was not one of the ones he knew well. He was eventually discovered hiding on Thompson Island after the Outward Bound school based there noticed their supplies were dwindling faster than they should have been. They called the Coast Guard for assistance, and that was how Agent Miranda had become involved in the case.  
  
The siblings had been living in safe houses together waiting for the day when they could testify to a grand jury in hopes of getting BoBo and his accomplices indicted. Now that Sadak Sendak was in custody, maybe they could even get an accomplice put in jail. If they could deal a serious blow to the nascent stateside arm of BoBo’s Culebra organization then it might become safe enough for them to stop running.  
  
Lance still had a fragile smile on his lips when Miranda finally had to end the call. His chest hurt. Damn that canny bastard. He’d known exactly which button to push.  
  
“You have questions,” Miranda said leaning forward earnestly.  
  
“What exactly are you hoping to accomplish with an indictment?” It wasn’t as if there was any chance whatsoever that Bocar would be extradited to the United States.  
  
“We don’t need to seek justice here to get Bocar in real hot water,” Miranda replied. “We just need to expose him as the mastermind and beneficiary of a flagrant capitalist enterprise in such a splashy way that it can’t be covered up or easily brushed aside.”  
  
Lance stared down at back of his left hand, where a y-type cannula had been taped over the vena amoris to administer pain meds and draw blood. He didn’t remember a whole lot about the island where he’d been born, but he couldn’t imagine Bocar’s involvement in illegal profit chasing would go over well with the communist government he was flouting, especially when they found out how far he’d taken it. Without the ability to detain him, stopping Bocar from continuing as he was might have to be enough.  
  
Lance still wasn’t sure where he fit in as a witness. “Veronica knows a lot more about Bocar’s business practices than I ever learned.”  
  
“What about your mother?” Miranda asked, trying to make himself smaller in the chair to appear less threatening. “Maybe she knew something, left some records?’  
  
“Oh...” Lance leaned back on the pillows. Of course. “She wrote me letters.” They had slipped his mind in all the uproar. “Two tiny letters. She hid them in the locket. They’re in Spanish.”  
  
Miranda sat up straighter. “Do you know where those letters are now?”  
  
Lance nodded. “They’re in my nest.” Damn it. He closed his eyes against watering tear ducts. “In the duffel bag inside the drawer on the bed frame.” He hated to give them up but he would do it if it would help his half-siblings live their lives without having to constantly look over their shoulders.  
  
“May we?” Miranda asked.  
  
Was he asking for permission to disturb the nest? All the police procedurals on TV showed forensics teams being respectful of omega’s nests. He’d thought that was just a pop culture myth, but maybe there was some truth to it.  
  
“Yes, you may,” he replied. His voice came out shakier than he’d intended. “Sorry I’m getting so emotional.” He waved a hand in front of his eyes as if that could stave off the waterworks. “It’s just, those letters are the last thing I have of her.”  
  
“No Lance.” Miranda’s dark hazel eyes shone with sympathy. “They’re not the last thing you have of her. You carry her within you, and you will for all of your life.”  
  
Lance allowed the agent to pat him comfortingly on his blanket-covered foot as tears poured freely down his cheeks.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I researched the real locations mentioned in this fic, but I also took creative license. I figured if secondary genders exist in this AU, then that might have a ripple effect and other things could be different too.


	18. Lost On The Way Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance gets some advice and makes a fateful decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos!

 

Gruffydd Roderick met Allura at his front door wearing a yellow robe thrown over blue and green striped pajamas. He offered her tea, which she politely declined.  
  
“Thank you for seeing me at such a late hour,” she said.  
  
Ever the gentleman, he waited for Allura to sit in an open armchair in his home office before taking his own seat behind his writing desk. His hazelnut scent was unflappable and familiar and very comforting. The fact that he was not doing it on purpose (Gruffydd was a beta through and through) somehow made it even more soothing.  
  
“Of course I’m happy to help my dear, anytime at all.” He folded his large hands on the desk’s lustrous walnut surface. “The first thing I would recommend for your friend to do is obtain an emergency order of protection, as a first step toward obtaining a more permanent order of protection. However, you implied on the telephone that this might not be possible?”  
  
“Erm, well you see,” Allura leaned back on the crushed velvet upholstery and folded her hands in her lap, “my friend is legally dead.”  
  
Gruffydd blinked his down-turned blue eyes while he processed that. “That does complicate things.”  
  
“Quite.”  
  
“If your friend attempts to file a lawsuit under an identity that is either assumed or dead, his suit is going to be thrown out.” Gruffydd leaned his square chin on his hands. “However, as you’ve described it to me, Coran and your friend’s partner can also be considered injured parties in this situation. If I’m understanding correctly, then they have no identity issues barring them from filing civil lawsuits against this man who attacked your friend and his partner tonight. I would recommend that they both file for injunctions against harassment and for recovery of damages as soon as possible.”  
  
“Of course.” Coran probably already knew to do that, but Pidge’s brother might not, so this was valuable information well worth sharing. “Thank you so much for your guidance.”  
  
Gruffydd raised bushy brown eyebrows. “You still look unhappy.”  
  
Allura sighed. “I had hoped to also be able to offer an optimistic goal to the friend who was the main target of the assault,” she admitted.  
  
“Oh, but you have.” Gruffydd smiled his broad, sunny smile at her. “So long as your friend is living on Coran’s property, an injunction against harassment won for Coran will also legally impel the defendant to stay away from your friend while he is at home.” Gruffydd frowned again. “Of course that’s providing the defendant obeys the injunction. Alfor would have relished an opportunity to point out the holes in the system with a case like this.”  
  
Her father would have been positively fired up about it. “He probably would have taken it on pro bono.”  
  
“By Jove.” Gruffydd smiled again, nostalgically this time. “He would have, wouldn’t he?”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Promising his mother he would go straight to bed, Matt dragged his protesting body into his childhood bedroom off the back patio. His parents had taken down all his posters during this latest refurbishing to put a fresh coat of cream-colored paint on the walls, but a lot of his teenaged furnishing choices had been put back into place afterward. The low dresser and nightstand were still there, along with the giant barrel chair where he used to do his homework. The green quilt and pillow with matching sham were still thrown over the hammock bed, which was there because he’d gone through a phase where he seriously wanted to swing himself to sleep at night and his parents had figured there wasn’t a good reason not to let him.  
  
The only bed he wanted now was one with Lance in it, purring and nuzzling in sleepy contentment. He took his phone out of his overnight bag. Still no calls. He plugged it into the charger and placed it on his nightstand, then carefully crawled into the hammock bed, circling into as tight a fetal curve as his sore body would allow and immediately plunged into a nightmare in which Lance was being shot to death right in front of him.  
  
He woke up gasping, the bed creaking softly side to side with his movements.  
  
“Matt?” His mother was right outside the door. “I’m coming in.”  
  
Hallway light cast a bright band across the bedroom floor as Colleen entered the room, bringing her sweet lily scent with her along with appley steam from a mug of chamomile tea. She’d probably made it for herself but she had always been quick to share whenever one of her children woke unexpectedly in the night.  
  
“Drink this, sweetie.”  
  
She brushed his bangs back from his face as he held the cup to his lips in trembling hands.  
  
“Thanks Ma.”  
  
She kissed his forehead like she had when he was small. “Can you sleep now?”  
  
“I’ll try.”  
  
“I’m here if you need me.”  
  
She made herself comfortable on the barrel chair and stayed with him until he fell to sleep again.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“They’ve got him on lockdown.” Roth had parked his car so that he could watch the FBI agent pace up and down the first floor hall in his rear view mirror while using his cell phone in relative privacy. Back and forth, forth and back, stalking and snarling into her phone behind reinforced glass.  
  
She was kind of hot.  
  
_“Are they charging him?”_   prodded the woman who was paying Roth on retainer.  
  
“They’re going to try.” Roth had seen the Coast Guard agent go in and then leave again in a big hurry. They were working something out. “They’re holding him on assault and battery while they get their shit together.”  
  
_“Really?”_   Honerva's voice took on that slow, considering tone that in Roth's experience with the woman presaged the occasion of someone regretting their life choices. _“Who’d he batter?”_  
  
“Some college teacher and his omega boyfriend. It was a rut rage.”  
  
_“See what else you can find out. I want him serving time ASAP, I don’t care what the reason is but if you can find a reason that has nothing to do with the firm I'll see that you get a bonus.”_  
  
“You got it boss lady.”  
  
Maybe he could interest that alpha agent in a cup of coffee. She looked like she’d be fun to rile up.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
For the second time in less than forty-eight hours, Shiro sat across from Keith sipping coffee at a table next to a window. The only thing pleasant about it this time was the presence of Keith. The coffee was bitter, the chairs were hard, and the knowledge of what prompted this coffee date sat heavily on Shiro’s shoulders like an over-packed tac bag.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he said for maybe the fourth time. He hadn’t wanted to cut out on Keith with the barest of explanations delivered secondhand, but he’d feared that Agent Ezer would leave without him. It was only because Lance was an omega and Shiro an alpha proven capable of calming him down that the EMT crew even let Shiro in the back of the ambulance in the first place. Usually only immediate family got to ride in an ambulance with someone, and even then they were almost always made to sit up front with the driver.  
  
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” Keith reached across the table for his hand. “None of this is your fault.”  
  
Shiro squeezed Keith’s hand. “I still want to make it up to you.”  
  
Keith’s half-smile was as warm as a campfire. “Then I’m going to let you make it up to me, because that means I get to see you again.”  
  
Shiro laughed and drank his bitter coffee while thanking the Seven Lucky Gods that he met Keith.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“We’re ultimately looking to bring this in front a Grand Jury,” Miranda said. “You’ll be offered immunity regarding any fraudulent transactions that might have occurred while you were living under an assumed identity. You’ll be permitted to testify in secret. None of the accused will be there, and you will not be cross-examined.”  
  
“We might have to file a criminal complaint to hold Sendak in custody,” Ezer countered. “If that happens, we’re going to need you to testify in front of a judge within the next day or so, and Sendak will be there.”  
  
“That’s not a definite,” Coran cut in. It was odd seeing such a grave look on a face made for ebullience. “Witnesses are not required to testify at an initial appearance, though it’s certainly your right to do so Lance, in light of the federal charges being levied.”  
  
Lance peered around at all three serious faces at his bedside. When he’d agreed to start cooperating with Miranda’s objectives, Miranda had allowed Agent Ezer back into the room to have another go at trying to talk Lance into pressing felony charges against Sadak individually. Then Coran, who had arrived with news that Matt had been released from the hospital with a good prognosis (news which left Lance sagging in the bed in pure relief), had insisted that Lance needed legal counsel and declared that as an active member of the State Bar of Arizona he was qualified to act in an advisory capacity.  
  
“We have a much better chance of Sendak being denied bail if you testify at the initial appearance,” Ezer pressed her case.  
  
‘Sadak out on bail’ was a speculation that made Lance break out in gooseflesh. “I’ll testify at the initial appearance if there’s any chance it will keep him off the streets. Besides, all of this is supposed to lead to a trial, right? So I’m going to have to testify eventually anyway.”  
  
“As an omega who has been sexually exploited, you may request to deliver your testimony by closed-circuit television,” Coran said.  
  
It had always made Lance feel a little uneasy that omegas of all ages were offered that option when other dynamics were only candidates if they were minors. Sadak used to say that nobody liked being within smelling distance of an overwrought omega and that was the only reason why it was allowed. Now that Lance found himself in the position of possibly needing it, he’d be lying if he said he didn’t appreciate that the option was there. It still bothered him though, and he wasn’t sure if it was the notion that omegas couldn’t keep it together any better than a child or the comparatively callous disregard for other dynamics in such a situation which troubled him more. “I’ll think about it. I can think about that, right?”  
  
“Of course,” Coran said, while Ezer said “Don’t think about it too long,” and Miranda reassured him that “Some of the other witnesses are already availing themselves of that option.”  
  
Those other witnesses being his brothers, most likely. It still astonished Lance every time he remembered. Somewhere in the back of his mind he’d been aware that he was technically not an only child ever since reading Mamá’s letters, but meeting some of those siblings had made it mindbogglingly real.  
  
“How many half-siblings do I have?” came out of his mouth before he remembered there were two other people in the room who might not have been fully briefed on certain details of the case.  
  
Miranda didn’t rebuke him. “At last count it was an estimated one hundred and twenty-two.” His lips thinned dolefully. “There may be more. The alpha and beta boys are harder to track.”  
  
Lance was floored at the number. “How?”  
  
“You’ve got to remember that Bocar has been at this for over two decades now. Also, he’s been trying to take advantage of the twin rule.”  
  
That sort of made sense. Female omegas were famous for bearing fraternal twins at a much higher rate than other dynamics. Being capable of both induced and spontaneous ovulation, if they happened to begin ovulation right on the cusp of a heat then there was an increased chance that two eggs could be fertilized instead of just one. Some couples would even time heats and menstrual cycles looking for that magic window to conceive twins on purpose.  
  
That didn’t explain how Bocar kept finding female omegas to impregnate. Sooner or later the gossip would have to get ahead of him, even if he decided to tour the entire island looking for sexual encounters that he could turn into lucre. “My mother can’t be the only omega who heard the gossip and decided to make a break for it.”  
  
“She wasn’t.” There was a long pause. Just when Lance thought Miranda wasn’t going to elaborate on that, he said, “He somehow began making connections with international criminal organizations that catered to less permanent arrangements.” Miranda grimaced. “We think it may have happened when he was trying to run down a particular mother who had travel papers and was known to these people. However it happened, it changed his business model. He no longer needed to seduce local omega women. He could have omega women delivered to him instead, and it improved his success rate at getting twins in the bargain. But the deals he made to cover himself became more reckless, the people he was dealing with more dangerous. He started popping up on Interpol’s radar.”  
  
“The Peter Principle in action,” Ezer commented glibly, ignoring the narrow-eyed look Coran threw her way.  
  
“Then he took the riskiest chance of all, trying to gain custody of you while he was away from his power base. He’d become accustomed to operating from the dragon seat and thought obtaining progenitor rights over an omega offspring living in the open would be easier than trying to flush out two runaways who were in the wind. He wasn’t prepared to deal with foreign authorities and media.”  
  
Things Sadak had said during their fight returned to the forefront of Lance’s mind. “Bocar wanted to send me to the alpha who rejected Veronica.”  
  
Miranda nodded. “That’s the most likely scenario. He would have had to pay back the deposit the alpha put on your sister if he couldn’t find a suitable replacement. All of the children in his orphanage were already spoken for. Finding you must have seemed fortuitous to him.”  
  
Like the proverbial bird in the hand. He wouldn’t have relinquished his claim, not a prideful man like the one Mamá had described in her letters. Not unless he found a more agreeable alternative.  
  
“I want to know the exact terms of the deal he made with Sadak,” Lance said slowly, clutching the blanket over his lap. There was an ember of fresh anger burning in his gut, threatening to build to a wildfire. “And I want to know from Sadak’s own lips. I think I can get him to tell me. You can listen in if you want.”  
  
“What,” Ezer struggled to catch up with Lance’s abrupt about-face, “you want to go in with a wire?”  
  
“If that’s the best way for us both to get a confession out of him, then sure.”  
  
Ezer looked like all her birthdays and Christmases had come at once, Coran looked horrified, and Miranda looked dour.  
  
“This is a dangerous task you’re proposing to undertake,” said Miranda.  
  
“You’ve got him secured don’t you?”  
  
“Not as secured as I’d like if we’re going to be waving an omega he’s obsessed with under his nose. He spent his entire interview with me asking for you. I’ll be perfectly frank, I don’t think the timing is ideal for this.”  
  
“When his rut’s out of his system he’ll clam up,” Ezer argued. “The timing couldn’t be better!”  
  
“You’ll risk running afoul of the Mallory Rule,” Coran interjected.  
  
“He’s been Mirandized,” Ezer scoffed.  
  
“Still and all,” Coran huffed and turned to Lance. “As your friend I understand that you want to know why. Please believe that I do. But as your advisor it would be remiss of me not to warn you against taking on such a great risk to yourself with no promise of reward.”  
  
“Oh, I want something in return,” Lance said, “and it’s not just the intangible satisfaction of making Sadak dance to my tune for a change.”  
  
“We can’t guarantee that a confession recorded in a wired interview will result in a conviction,” Miranda said. “Mr. Smythe is in the right to urge caution on that point.”  
  
“I know that.” Lance took a moment to gather his thoughts, feeling the aches in his body, muted by pain medication but not erased. “There are two things I want. First thing is, I have a house. Well, it’s not really mine anymore, it’s in trust to my dad. Shiro’s the trustee. Although I suppose if you’re going to amend my death certificate it might still be mine.”  
  
Lance sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I know I can never live there again and I’m beginning to think my dad won’t want to either.” It would never really be home again without Mamá in it. “But I sure as hell don’t want Sadak to have it. I know he wants to sell it, and now I’m afraid he wants to sell it to Bocar or one of his business partners.”  
  
Lance shuddered at the thought of the house where his family had been so happy together being used to further the agenda of the man who’d destroyed that happiness.  
  
“That’s not an unreasonable assumption.” Miranda watched Lance’s face attentively. “What do you want to do with it?”  
  
“I want my siblings to have it.” The idea had been germinating in the back of his mind since hearing Veronica tell her story, and now it bloomed like a wildflower. “I know they probably can’t use it yet, they might not even want to, but I’d like to see that they at least have the option when this is over.”  
  
“I think that can be arranged.” Miranda was smiling now. “You mentioned a second thing?”  
   
“Yeah.” Lance braced himself. They might actually try to fight him on this part. “In the pocket of my jacket that the EMTs took off me is a driver’s license.” He looked up and locked eyes with each of the three people sitting at his bedside. “I want you to use the information on that license to make my new identity.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Pidge’s childhood bedroom off the front porch had been repainted and re-carpeted in shades of eggshell and almond, but otherwise it was pretty much the same as it had been before she’d moved into her own place. Teetering bookshelves still lined the walls, the computer desk with the S chair still sat where she could stargaze out the window if she wanted to, and her old twin bed with the constellation duvet cover still dominated the corner across from her old beanbag chair.  
  
As Pidge sank back into her childhood bed, she paused for a moment of silence to mourn the loss of that beer she’d left sitting out on her own back porch. It was a good beer. She hoped wasps hadn’t gotten into it.  
  
On the bookshelf next to her bed, her phone chimed with an incoming text. It was from Keith.

  * _Lance being released & we’re on the move. Shit’s getting weird. Don’t tell your brother yet._



  
“Are you fucking kidding me?” For a guy who spoke his mind so succinctly in person, Keith’s texts were cryptic as hell. She texted him back.

  * _Keep me in the loop or I will find u  (☞ >д<)☞_



  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“You weren’t kidding.” Shiro was reading over Keith’s shoulder while they waited behind Miranda’s dark blue sedan at the stop light. “She is kind of savage, isn’t she?”  
  
“You have no idea.” Keith re-docked the phone when the light turned green. “She is fully capable of making good on that threat, so we better keep her updated.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“Listen Pinkerton -”  
  
“It’s Roth.” The P.I. grinned at her like a big doofy Boxer dog. “But you can call me Ray.”  
  
Reda didn’t have time to feed her ego with the attentions of this hunk of smiley muscle-meat. “I am not going to get coffee with you. I’m in the middle of something.”  
  
“How about I bring the coffee to you, then?”  
  
That was actually a capital idea, mainly because it would get him out of her hair for a while. “Great, bring me one of them sparkly frappathings.”  
  
“You mean like the unicorn, or the mermaid?”  
  
“Surprise me.” Reda really didn’t care what flavor he brought her, since she probably wouldn’t drink it anyway. She just knew from watching Ezer order them that the sparkly ones took the longest to make.  
  
“Prepare to be surprised.” Roth winked broadly. His fig newton scent puffed out proudly. “I’ll be back.”  
  
“No rush.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Roth ducked out of sight and used the app on his phone to put in his coffee order. For the instructions on Zielenski’s frapp he tapped out, _‘use the edible glitter, flavor combo up to you, extra tip if you make it extra sparkly.’_   Up close, Zielenski smelled deliciously tart, like cherries on the tree. Roth was gonna bring her a coffee so frothy and sparkly it would look like the aftermath of a Pegasus orgy.  
  
As he was exiting the parking lot, he passed two cars coming in. The first one was your standard dark blue sedan, so unassuming most people would’ve ignored it. Roth was not most people, and he noticed the windows tinted so opaque that the occupants were completely obscured. Limo tint like that didn’t come factory standard on a Joe Schmo four door. Right on their bumper was a little red off-roader carrying a passenger Roth recognized from the dossier he’d compiled on individuals tangential to the target of his investigation.  
  
Damn it. If he turned around now they’d spot him and find a way to dodge him. His best course of action would be to finish this coffee run as quickly as possible so that he then had a perfect excuse to walk right up to Zielenski, hopefully while that group was still there. There was little doubt in his mind they’d shown up for Sadak Sendak.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“You sure you’re ready for this?”  
  
Lance peeked up at Shiro from under the wide brim of the ball cap Ezer had given him to wear. It had a tiny recording device hidden behind a mesh panel on the front of the crown. The recording would be wirelessly sent to a DVR hidden in Miranda’s briefcase. Miranda, Ezer and her partner would be able to monitor with minimal latency delay from an app on Ezer’s phone.  
  
“I have to know, Shiro.” It was eating him up inside. Where did the rabbit hole end? Sadak could tell him, and he was damn sure going to get some answers tonight.  
  
“Remember,” Ezer said, coming up on Lance’s other side to sling an arm over his shoulders, “he’s got no expectation of privacy and he’s had his rights read to him, so feel free to ask him anything.”  
  
“Do not put yourself in unnecessary danger.” Coran stepped up next to Shiro. “Psychoactive drugs are not always effective on an alpha prime in full rut.”  
  
“He’s also in four-point restraints,” Miranda pointed out, “but I would still prefer for you to approach him cautiously since he could be faking the degree of effect the drugs are having on him. Don’t get too close to him. We’ll be within earshot if you need assistance.”  
  
“You can come home with us after.” Keith shouldered in between Shiro and Coran. “Allura said it was okay, she said she wanted to talk to you and Coran about filing a civil suit. She’s got plenty of guest rooms.”  
  
“Yes her house is quite comfortable and secure, you would be most welcome,” Coran said. “I believe I may stay over myself.”  
  
“Hope she don’t mind having a plainclothes hanging around outside her place.” Ezer’s partner, the alpha who had shot Sadak, stood slightly off to the side with folded arms.  
  
Before anyone could answer that, Miranda’s associate stepped into the hall to join them, with a tall, stoical orderly at her back. “His leather cuffs are secure, sir.”  
  
“Thank you Agent Acciai.” Miranda turned back to Lance. “Remember the word we agreed on if you need us to interrupt the interview?”  
  
“Spear.” They had agreed on this beforehand, in case Lance’s safety had been compromised in some way where they couldn’t see it happening or he couldn’t raise a ruckus, or if he just felt overwhelmed and needed help exiting the interview. Lance hoped it was overkill.  
  
“We’re picking up audio and video,” Ezer said, staring at her phone. “You’re good to go.”  
  
Acciai cracked opened the door to allow Lance to slip inside the room where they had Sadak isolated. As she quietly closed the door behind him the smell struck like a hot clout, thick as silt and far more pungent than Sadak’s normal peppery musk. Lance resisted the urge to plug his nose.  
  
Sadak had been restrained to a bed partially hidden behind a privacy curtain at the far end of the room. That was probably more for the sensory-reducing effect than any concern for Sadak’s dignity, but the resulting visual was almost like a parody of a nest. The alpha cast a bulky horizontal shadow against the antimicrobial fabric dangling from the ceiling.  
  
“L a u r e l...” The rattling moan from behind the curtain was followed by a long, low rumble.  
  
Lance grit his teeth against the anger and fear churning nauseatingly in his gut and forced his feet forward, past the edge of the curtain. He revolved near the foot of the bed to behold the sweaty mess who had been his husband.  
  
Sadak had been changed into a cotton gown that fastened in the back and which was damp with perspiration in the front. They’d put those nubbly little non-skid socks on his feet. He was indeed restrained with leather cuffs on all four limbs, and grinning like a maniac with bloodshot eyes.  
  
“You came.” A thin line of drool dripped from the corner of his mouth. “It is unacceptable to cover your head indoors, omega.”  
  
Lance’s blood froze.  
  
“Remove your head covering immediately and let me gaze upon your supple neck.”  
  
Lance breathed an inward sigh of relief. Sadak was offended by the hoodie Lance had pulled up over the back of the hat. He hadn’t caught on to the surveillance.  
  
“Cut the shit Sadak.” Lance’s voice sounded steadier than he felt. “You bought me, when you were already courting me. I want to know why.”  
  
“You make it sound like I traded you for a mule.” Sadak chuffed out an incredulous laugh. “I paid your token, Laurel. It was an honest exchange.”  
  
“An honest- you cut a deal with Drago Bosque Bocar, you call that an honest exchange?!” Miranda had warned him against getting worked up, said it might feed into Sadak’s agitation, but Lance couldn’t help his reaction to those words.  
  
“I paid your father his due,” Sadak growled. “You are my bride by right.”  
  
“The only thing he’s due is my foot up his ass.” Lance could not believe this arrogant prick. “And for the last time, he’s not my father!”  
  
“Omega you try my patience.” Sadak pulled at the cuffs on his wrists, the leather groaning at the strain. **“I am your alpha!”**  
  
Lance felt the alpha command crescendo through him like a fugue played on a pipe organ. Then it softened to a whisper and was gone.  
  
Sadak was not his alpha anymore.  
  
“So you paid my token, did you?” Lance’s fear burned away in the blaze of a quiet wrath. “What was I worth to you, alpha?”  
  
“Two-hundred thousand dollars, and ten years of service.” Sadak writhed upon the bed in a conflagration of his own. “That I may be called upon to sign paperwork and broker arrangements so that worthy alphas might also receive the bounty of your bloodline.”  
  
“So that my siblings, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, might be bartered like chattel? Is that what you mean?” The heat of anger wicked up Lance’s spine, displacing denser emotions. “How many, Sadak?”  
  
“Omega!” Sadak reared up as far as the restraints would allow. “You belong to me!”  
  
**“How many?!”**  
  
Lance had heard the stories of dynamics other than alpha producing the command voice in moments of extreme stress, similar to stories of parents lifting cars off their children or lovers running through fire to reach their partners. He had not expected to ever hear such a voice thunder out of his own chest but he was too caught up in the moment to wonder at it.  
  
“Three females, united with their rightful mates.” Sadak sagged down in his bindings, chuckling, eyes rolling in his sweat-soaked head. “And one male who disappeared. I would have been able to introduce you to that one, Laurel. I would have permitted you to associate with him. Think of it, Laurel. I could have handed your blood family back to you!”  
  
Lance thought of it, meeting Marco at some black tie event where they were both being shown off in clothes as expensive as they were impractical. Having strangers remark on their resemblance, wondering why their eyes looked so similar but never knowing for sure because there was no way in hell Sadak would have ever let them speak alone, no matter what he was saying right now.  
  
“I can give you relations, Laurel.” Now the asshole was shamelessly humping the air, breath rattling in his chest. **“Come here so that I may breed you. Omega.”**  
  
Lance had only one answer to that command. “No.” Not even if he’d been in heat and Sadak possessed the last pair of fertile balls in the universe.  
  
“Omega! I’ll give you blood!” Sadak lunged forward with such vigor that one of his wrist cuffs ripped right off the bed rails.  
  
Shit! Lance backpedaled without looking behind him, knocking into an overbed table and scattering its contents to the floor. There didn’t appear to be any sharp implements among the medical tools ricocheting off the linoleum, but Sadak might not need any. He was making quick work of the other wrist cuff with one bare hand.  
  
“Spear!”  
  
The stone-faced orderly was halfway in the door before Lance’s scream had fully left his throat. As the orderly rushed at Sadak, another hand reached out and yanked Lance backward through the doorway by the scruff of his hoodie. It smelled like Shiro. Sadak got a whiff of him too and stopped grappling with the orderly to roar a challenge so loud it echoed off the walls, and then Keith shoved himself in front of both of them and shrieked out a warning that shook all the glass in the medicine cabinet. Lance got a glimpse of the orderly smacking a syringe against Sadak’s thigh before his view was blocked by a trio of backup orderlies, and then the door swung shut behind them.  
  
Chaos reined in the hallway, in flurries of elbows, feet and shouts. “We got it! We got all of it!”  “Hey I got your coffee.”  “Let’s trace that money trail, I want those three girls found.”  “Sir, yes sir.”  “You brought me a DayGlo orange frappathingy?”  “Surprise! It’s called the Traffic Cone.”  “Can somebody please get the omega prime out of olfactory range so we can subdue this guy?”  “Bring another vial of Lorazepam!”  “Ooh, I ‘ll drink it if you don’t want it.”  “Go for it.”  “Come on!”  
  
Hands guided Lance by the arms, hustling him down the hall and out of a set of double doors with an exit sign over them.  
  
“Should we wait?” Shiro’s voice went with the hands on Lance’s right side.  
  
“I daresay they’ll catch up with us.” That was Coran on his left.  
  
“He’s still got the hat on.” Keith was right behind them.  
  
“We’ll give it back when they inevitably knock on Allura’s door,” Coran said. “Let’s go, before a local news crew gets wind of something afoot at this hospital and then all of our faces wind up on the television.”  
  
They loaded Lance into the back of Keith’s 4x4 with Shiro. Keith and Coran got in the front. The parking lot was strangely still after the noise and movement of the hallway. Shiro pressed a hand to Lance’s forehead, took his pulse and examined his pupils.  
  
“We’re a little shocky,” Shiro murmured, “but we’re okay.”  
  
“Somebody text Pidge?” Keith started the ignition.  
  
“I can do that,” Coran offered. “Where is your phone?”  
  
“Here.”  
  
Fumbling and beeping noises commenced. The hospital building, now swarming like a freshly kicked ant hill, disappeared rapidly as Keith sped away into the night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole fic has kind of been a journey of Langst to Lancey Lance. We're on the home stretch now.


	19. Birdhouse in Your Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to breathe and take stock of what to keep and what to let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always for the kudos. :)

 

The inside of Allura’s house was just as idiosyncratically plush as the exterior. Lance was shown three separate guest bedrooms on the second floor to choose from, one of them decorated in a sort of manly desert theme, another in a cozy chalet style, and the third was packed with chintz and what looked like a small private law library. It was obvious from the mustache trimmer on the dresser that Coran favored that third one (though it was just like him to offer it anyway) so Lance went for the cozy one.  
  
Then Allura had insisted on washing his clothes. “Go ahead and have a soak in the tub. I’ll just get those cleaned.” She wiggled her elegantly manicured hands at Lance’s now-quite-dirty jeans and jacket ensemble like she could clean them with a magic spell. “I’m sure I’ve got a nightgown that will fit you in the meantime.”  
  
Lance flashed on a mental image of himself floating around the upstairs in an Old Hollywood Glam nightie like an omega in a Gothic movie, off to investigate some mysterious noise armed only with a lit candle.  
  
“I can go and grab some of my old sweats,” Keith butted in. “It’ll only take a sec.”  
  
Allura and Keith proceeded to get into a rather involved discussion on appropriate bedtime attire (“What if someone drops by in the middle of the night and you answer the door looking like a ragamuffin?”  “Whoever shows up at my door in the middle of the night deserves the sight of me scratching my ass”) while Shiro stood there trying not to laugh at them. Coran quietly steered Lance to the bathroom nearest the bedroom he’d chosen.  
  
“Alfor called this room the Blue Oasis,” he said, and Lance could see why. All of the walls were painted admiral blue, and the towels matched. Stenciled blue-green hummingbirds decorated the extensive tiles.  
  
“There should be amenities in here.” Coran checked the drawers under the sink. “Ah! I knew it. Here we are.” He withdrew a basket filled with travel-size toiletries. “Alfor always kept the basics on hand for guests, he was an extraordinarily generous man. Allura has maintained a number of his customs to honor his memory. Make yourself comfortable. If you drop your clothes outside the door, I’ll see they get washed. Hopefully those two will have come to an agreement before you’re finished bathing, but if not I’m sure I have some pajamas you can borrow.”  
  
“Thank you Coran.”  
  
“It’s quite alright lad.” Coran left him to his privacy.  
  
Lance dutifully divested himself of his dirty clothing, and the compression bandages and cold packs from the hospital, looking himself over in the bathroom mirror as he went. Such an awfully familiar routine. Dr. Hawkins had assured him that none of his injuries required setting, but he still wanted to check for himself.  
  
The bruising on his hip wasn’t going away any time soon, not after tonight. He had fresh bruises along his back and the backs of his legs, and on his arms where Sadak had been gripping him. There might be more waiting to fully develop on his flanks, where the skin was pinked with abrasions. He’d gone through that coffee table pretty hard. Dr. Hawkins had told him to take it easy, continue to apply cold compresses and restrict his hot baths and showers to under twenty minutes for the next several days.  
  
Lance left his clothes piled right outside the door, then took the oat milk bath products out of the basket and placed them on the rim of the sunken tub. He stepped down into the basin and ran the water until it was hot enough to sting.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  


  * _U better call me rite now or I am comin ove_ r



  
Keith squinted at the text which had interrupted his search for loose sweats. He had discovered, much to his own chagrin and Shiro’s blushing delight, that most of his old high school and college sweats were shrunk too tight for Lance to use in his current condition. He supposed he could just let Allura provide one of her nightie sets, but he really didn’t think Lance was up to fumbling with laces or buttons. He'd looked like the only thing keeping him from dropping was pure willpower.  
  
Keith’s high school football jersey was loose enough that it might suffice, and Pidge’s demand wouldn’t wait.  
  
“Would you please take this to the house for Lance?” He held out the jersey to Shiro. “I gotta call her.” He waved the phone in his other hand.  
  
“Sure.” Shiro took the shiny red material from Keith’s outstretched hand. “You played?”  
  
“Halfback,” Keith confirmed. He’d started high school in Texas where it was practically on the core curriculum.  
  
“I played quarterback,” Shiro replied, which didn’t surprise Keith at all. He had the perfect build and personality for leading an offensive team. But then Shiro said, “Maybe I can pitch you the ball some time.”  
  
About half of Keith’s blood supply fled south, and he was seriously considering doing something about it (what difference was fifteen more minutes really going to make) when his phone chimed again.  
  
Damn that little cockblocking gremlin.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Pidge had located her keys and was debating just putting on pants under her nightshirt when her phone finally rang.  
  
“Took you long enough,” she said in lieu of a greeting.  
  
_“Don’t start with me. It’s been a long night and it’s not even over yet.”_  
  
Keith then proceeded to tell a story that made Pidge want to rip herself a new undercut hairdo in frustration. Between Matt’s known tendencies and what she was hearing from Keith, her future nieces and nephews would require constant vigilance to keep them from daredeviling their little ways into orthopedic casts. The local emergency rooms would know the name Holt better than ever before.  
  
Pidge would just have to up her security game. In fact, what better subsidiary business to Holt Family Nurseries than selling and maintaining security systems? The nursery business already took them into people’s yards anyway, and getting it off the ground would give Pidge a project to siphon off her excess energy until Dad was ready to retire.  
  
Keith’s voice cut through the business plan she was already plotting on a mental spreadsheet. _“...want to keep him at Allura’s at least until he testifies at the initial appearance.”_  
  
“How long’s that gonna be?”  
  
_“Coran says probably within the next day or two.”_  
  
“And after that?”  
  
_“I don’t know, man.”_  
  
Matt could be persuaded to remain on bed rest for a little while longer if he could talk to Lance on the phone, but if he was told there was no ETA on when he would get to see him again, Pidge could easily envision him sneaking through the backyard and hobbling to the bus stop in his jammies.  
  
“Think he’ll be up for visitors in the morning?”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance slouched neck-deep in the hot soapy water feeling the steam caress his cheeks. Freshly washed hair dripped steadily on his temples and jaw. A sudden drum roll on the door made him sit straight up in the bath water.  
  
“Lance you need to get out of the hot water now.” Shiro was on the other side of the door. “It’s been twenty minutes. Doctor’s orders.”  
  
“Okay.” Lance sighed and swiped his wet hair away from his forehead. Dr. Hawkins had told him that prolonged exposure to heat wasn’t great for fresh sprains and strains, but it felt so nice on his overworked muscles. Maybe he could stall a few more minutes.  
  
“I’ll wait.”  
  
Damn it. He would, too. Sighing again, Lance pulled the stopper out of the drain and heaved himself out of the tub. Rubbing a blue towel over his hair and body, he shuffled to the door.  
  
Shiro stood just outside holding a small pile of clothes topped with an unopened box of instant cold packs and a familiar cell phone, still in its sock holster. “You need a painkiller?” They’d been given a sample while checking out of the hospital, along with the prescription which they hadn’t had time to fill yet.  
  
“Nah.” Lance folded the towel around his waist so he could take the stack from Shiro’s arms. “I’m good.”  
  
Shiro raised his eyebrows at that. “You’d tell me if you weren’t, right?”  
  
“Yeah.” Objectively, he knew that pain was no longer something he would have to fake his way past, but subjectively his pain tolerance threshold was still kind of whacked. “When I know, you’ll know.”  
  
Shiro frowned. “I’ll accept that, for now.”  
  
“I’m surprised they gave me my phone back,” Lance said, partly as a way to change the subject but also because he actually was surprised to see the phone.  
  
“Ezer dropped it off when she came in to pick up the hat.” Shiro said. “I wouldn’t put it past her to have tried to hack it, but you aren’t under arrest, so there’s no reason for them to keep it.”  
  
Shiro bid Lance a goodnight and left him to sort out the borrowed nightclothes, after explaining they were postponing the discussion of Allura’s civil suit fact-finding mission until breakfast on account of everyone being too tired to focus.  
  
Lance applied fresh cold packs and then sifted through the loaned clothing. He found plaid pajamas which were probably from Coran, a powder blue peignoir set that must have come from Allura, and a red football jersey with 21 screen-printed on the front and back. He put on the pajama pants with the football jersey and the peignoir robe over it. He didn’t care if it looked goofy, he was as comfortable as he was liable to get.  
  
He stumbled the short distance down the hall to the guest bedroom. Someone had already turned off the overhead light, turned down the chenille bedspread and turned on the nightstand’s candlestick lamp for him. Lance set the extra nightclothes down on the storage bench at the foot of the sleigh bed and examined the paperbacks on the nightstand. Legal thrillers one and all. He picked the one that seemed the least likely to remind him of his own life, and took the book and the phone into bed with him.  
  
Lance sat back against the pillows and gazed at the powered-down phone in his hands. Would it be wrong to call? Maybe he was trying to rest? Or maybe he was awake just like Lance was. Or maybe, possibly, he didn’t want to hear from Lance ever again, and if that was the case who could blame him? The mere thought of that outcome brought a fresh wave of nausea with it.  
  
He wasn’t going to find out for sure just by sitting here staring at his own reflection in the phone’s dark screen. He powered up the phone and unlocked it. As it glimmered to life and found a cell tower, text message and voice mail alerts began popping up. And popping up. Holy shit, there were more unread and unheard messages waiting than he’d ever had in his life. They weren’t all from Matt, but the most recent ones were. Heart in his throat, Lance tapped on a text from less than half an hour ago.  


  * _Please just tell me your ok I am so worried its hard to sleep_



  
Lance’s breath caught in his chest. He tapped to reply.  


  * _Im so sorry they took my phone I just got it back Im ok, are u ok?_



  
He hit send and immediately regretted it. What the hell was he thinking? Of course Matt wasn’t okay. Then his phone rang, Matt’s number flashing in the caller ID.  
  
Lance answered and then found he couldn’t force words past his chapped lips. What could he even say? _Sorry you got a beat-down from my ex, I promise it won’t happen again unless he escapes by breaking out of secured restraints like he almost did before? Oh, by the way my family’s way bigger and stranger than I thought, hope you always wanted over a hundred secret in-laws._  
  
_“Lance?”_  
  
That tiny, pained voice brought Lance out of his momentary panic trance. “I’m here.”  
  
_“Oh, thank God.”_  
  
“I’m so sorry Matt.” He felt like he could never say it enough times.  
  
_“Oh honey. You didn’t do anything wrong. Unless wanting to live your life is wrong, and if that’s the case, I’m a wrongdoer too.”_  
  
Lance sniffled and gave a damp chuckle. “Maybe we can be wrong together?”  
  
_“We’ll be the co-mayors of Wrongville.”_  
  
They talked deeper into the night, soft laughter alternating with tears and promises until someone came into Matt’s room to urge him to get some sleep. Lance reassured Matt again that he was okay before saying goodnight.  
  
He picked up the paperback book intending to read until he felt sleepy and then turn off the lamp. He fell asleep in the middle of the first chapter, lamp blazing away all night long.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance awoke to a gentle rap on the bedroom door. Morning light filtered through green tree leaves outside the window to compete with the light from the lamp.  
  
“Lance?” Coran’s voice carried easily through the closed door. “Are you awake?”  
  
“I’m awake.” Lance pushed himself out of bed stiffly. “I’m coming.”  
  
He opened the door to find Coran looking spiffy in a dark blue single-breasted suit. “G’morning.” Lance rubbed his eyes.  
  
“Good morning!” Coran smiled. “Breakfast is almost ready. Would you like me to send Shiro up to assist you?”  
  
Lance thought it over a moment. “That’s okay, I can make it down on my own.” He’d had to clean an entire house in worse straits than this before. He could manage fumbling around in one bedroom.  
  
Coran gave Lance his freshly laundered clothes and waved cheerily as he took to the stairs singing something that sounded like ‘chim chim cheree.’ Lance began straightening the room and was not all that surprised to hear a drum roll rapped on his door about five minutes later. He opened the door to find Shiro looking sheepish.  
  
“Hey.” Lance tried not to grin too big because he had a good idea of what must have happened.  
  
“Please let me help you.” Shiro looked endearingly earnest.  
  
“Okaaaay.” Lance stood aside and let Shiro into the room with him.  
  
Shiro had probably just been chased out of the kitchen because Shiro, passionate foodie though he was, had the strangest luck whenever he tried to cook anything himself. Bless his soul. Lance still fondly remembered an incident with his own mother, when she’d let Shiro help her make croquetas. What were supposed to be finger-sized ham rolls turned into logs closer to the size of ten year-old Lance’s forearm, which Mamá served for lunch one-to-a-plate as she dared Dad with her eyes to make a joke about it.  
  
Shiro frowned at the taupe top-sheet Lance had just spread out. “Why are you making the bed?”  
  
“Because I’m trying to be a polite houseguest.”  
  
Lance had stripped the bed he’d slept in and begun putting it back together hotel style, which had been Sadak’s preferred style and Lance had just fallen in with it on muscle memory without thinking about it. Huh. Well, it wasn’t like it was an unappealing style for making the bed. Lance had spent part of his childhood in a hotel, and those memories were not bad ones. Some of them were very good. Maybe not everything he’d learned in the past few years had to be given up as a lost cause.  
  
“Let me finish that while you get dressed.”  
  
Lance let Shiro finish remaking the bed, which he proceeded to do with pin-tuck hospital corners as he covertly examined Lance’s injuries out of the corner of his eye.  
  
“Your ribs feel okay?”  
  
“Yeah.” Lance took a deep whiff of his shirt before putting it back on. Some of Coran’s pleasant scent had rubbed off on it when he’d carried it to the door. “Most of the impact was on my back.” His sides had turned purple overnight but his breathing remained unimpeded.  
  
“Do you feel like you might need another pain pill?” Shiro folded the pillowcases over like envelopes and laid the pillows flat against the headboard.  
  
“Probably after breakfast.”  
  
“I’m gonna hold you to that.”  
  
They descended the stairs slowly, Shiro in front and Lance behind with one hand on the railing and the other on Shiro’s shoulder. Directly off to the left of the alcove at the bottom landing was the dining room, a formal space dominated by an antique carved table with ten matching side chairs. Blue table runners protected the polished wood from whatever was going to be served on the place settings of bone china enameled with pink roses.  
  
Keith entered the room from the opposite side carrying a red-glazed olla. Keith’s olla had a spout on the lip, and an open top from which a heavenly aroma steamed forth. He and Shiro made goo-goo eyes as soon as they saw each other.  
  
“Please tell me that’s coffee.” Lance snatched up the first coffee cup on the table to come within his reach.  
  
Shiro shook his head at the questionable table manners even as he held out the chair attached to that place setting like a gentleman. Lance went ahead and parked his butt there, not much caring where he sat in the hopes that coffee was on the way over.  
  
“It is, and you better thank me,” Keith smirked. “If it wasn’t for me we’d only be sipping tea this morning.”  
  
“Thank you Keith.” Lance did like hot tea, but to his mind nothing said ‘good morning’ like a cup of hot coffee. He made goo-goo eyes at the olla.  
  
Keith chuffed out a laugh and carefully poured him a cup. Lance thanked him again and took a sip. Keith brewed it sweeter than Matt did, with more cinnamon and no star anise. Lance really wanted to add this brewing method to his repertoire. He politely ignored the smoochy sounds and soft conversation going on over his left shoulder as he enjoyed his first cup of the day, and felt a little twinge in his chest as he wondered what Matt was doing right now.  
  
“Should one of us help Allura and Coran bring out the food?”  
  
“It should probably be you. I’m not allowed back in there.”  
  
Keith made soothing noises and then disappeared through a third doorway. Shiro poured himself a cup of coffee and took a seat next to Lance at the table. He took a sip and breathed “wow.”  
  
Lance smiled knowingly. “It’s good, huh?”  
  
“I’m a convert.”  
  
Lance was pretty sure he wasn’t just talking about the coffee.  
  
“I was hoping they’d arrive before we started,” Coran’s voice floated out of the kitchen ahead of the man himself, carrying a box of shredded wheat and a jug of cold milk.  
  
“Who would arrive?” Lance perked up.  
  
“There’s no harm in starting early.” Allura was right behind him, carrying a large serving plate piled with something that looked kind of like paella but smelled more like curry. “This is a household, not a royal court.”  
  
“Who’s arriving?” Lance asked again.  
  
The doorbell chimed.  
  
“Would somebody get that?” Keith came back in with a pot of hot tea in one hand, the sugar bowl in the other and a relish dish of lemon wedges cradled in one elbow. “Kinda got my hands full here.”  
  
“I got it.” Shiro stood and strode to the front door, which was directly across from the staircase and easily visible through the large archway separating the dining room from the front alcove.  
  
Lance turned in his seat to watch Shiro open the double doors, a tingle of hope in his belly. The doors swung inward, so the guests were not revealed until Shiro started closing the doors behind them. First was Pidge, carrying an olla that was very similar to Matt’s, but the triquetra pattern looked like it had been painted by a different hand. She was wearing a green blouse with a sweetheart neckline that looked a bit more dressed-up than what seemed to be her more usual uniform of cotton tees and orange high tops. Right behind her was a limping figure with a familiar head of bright hair, and Lance was out of his chair and crossing the room while someone behind him complained that he shouldn’t get up.  
  
Pidge waved at him as she passed him on the way to the kitchen. Lance nodded hello at her but did not slow his hitching gait, not even when he noticed there was an unfamiliar woman bringing up the rear. Matt turned and Lance got a good look at his face under the foyer light.  
  
“Your face.” Lance laid his hands as gently along Matt’s cheeks as he could. Oh, his face, his poor beautiful face.  
  
“I’m okay.” Matt tried to smile at him and it turned out kind of lopsided. He skimmed his palms up Lance’s arms, clearly wanting to hug but not wanting to hurt, so Lance took the initiative and hugged him instead.  
  
Matt leaned into the embrace, breathing deeply near Lance’s scent gland. “So glad you're okay.”  
  
“You guys need to watch it with the soft tissue injuries.” Shiro’s inner nurse was never far from the surface.  
  
Lance rested his head on Matt’s shoulder to take in Shiro’s concerned frown and the misty expression on the face of the lady standing next to him. The really tall lady with tiger eyes just like the eyes of the man in Lance’s arms. Her scent hit him in the next instant: lilies. This omega was Matt’s mom.  
  
“Thank you,” Lance said, feeling such a swell of gratitude toward her, for being so generous with her pheromones, for not stopping Matt from coming over to see Lance after everything that had happened, but most especially for having him in the first place and raising him up to be such a wonderful human being.  
  
“You’re welcome.” She smiled and then suddenly Lance was being passed from Matt’s arms into hers. “I’m so glad to meet you.”  
  
It had been so long since Lance had been hugged by a mother. Mom hugs were warm and sweet-smelling, like wrapping up in a hot towel fresh from the dryer after being caught in the rain. Lance soaked in the comfort that he’d never had any reason to believe he’d ever feel from anyone again.  
  
“I’m so glad to meet you too.”  
  
Shiro herded them all to the table where the olla brought by the Holts was revealed to contain beans flavored with tomatoes, bacon and sugar.  
  
“You need protein and fiber to start your day, and frijoles have both,” had been Colleen Holt’s decree on the matter.  
  
Lance happily loaded up his plate with frijoles alongside a helping of what was identified to him as kedgeree. The table chatter eventually turned from greetings and introductions to more urgent business. It turned out that Lance’s presence was not required for the initial appearance after all. Since Sadak had proven a danger to himself and others as well as a flight risk, the manifest necessity of keeping him in restraints had resulted in a magistrate judge agreeing to hold the initial appearance by video conference.  
  
In fact, that was why Coran was dressed so nicely. He would be attending the video conference with the permission of the court, after which he intended to go back to Mariposa Lane and check on the state in which the house had been left. Lance would still have to attend the preliminary hearing, but that would most likely be postponed until after Sadak’s rut was over.  
  
Meanwhile, Allura had not only secured information on how Matt and Coran could gain compensation for medical bills and property damage incurred as a result of Sadak’s rut rage, she had also inspired her father’s friend, who specialized in the pertinent field of civil law, to represent them pro bono. This lawyer believed that Matt and Coran could succeed in getting restraining orders as well.  
  
“I doubt that’s going to make him keep his distance from us if he’s free to roam,” Matt pointed out as he spooned sugar over shredded wheat. “Besides, how does that protect Lance?”  
  
“It will result in more serious charges against him if he violates the order,” Coran said, stirring milk into his tea. “It also means Lance is de facto under the umbrella of the order whenever he is with one of us or on property belonging to one of us. However, I don’t believe there’s much chance that Sendak will be released on his own recognizance. The breadth and variety of the charges against him right now is rather astounding.”  
  
Then the conversation turned to where Lance was going to stay while recuperating. Both he and Matt were supposed to be on bed rest for the rest of the week, which was a concept that was alien to Lance. He’d been this bad off before and never given the luxury of bed rest. Allura invited him to remain in her house for the duration. Matt wanted to take him home but his mother gently reminded him that he himself wouldn’t be home for at least several more days. Shiro wanted to take him back to California when he went back to work, but Lance gently reminded him that it was going to be difficult if not impossible for him to get a plane ticket.  
  
“Oh, that does remind me.” Coran set down his cup of tea and slipped a hand in his suit pocket. “Agent Zielenski dropped this off when she came by to update me on the status of the criminal case. She said the craftsmanship was so impressive that it should get you by until they’ve completed your official new identity. Seemed keen on finding out who made it for you, too, but that wasn’t part of the deal, was it?” Coran winked as he handed Lance’s clandestinely-made driver’s license back to him.  
  
So it could have passed a scan after all? Good to know. Darrell Stoker was indeed a man of many talents who knew how to keep a secret. The sort of man one could leak a secret identity to and trust that only other people who could also keep the secret would ever find out about it. Lance didn’t think he could get word to Darrell without implicating him, he was under no illusions that the special agents weren’t watching him in some way. But there was somebody sitting at this table who was probably crafty enough to do it.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“You sure he won’t freak out on me?”  
  
Pidge had made her apologies and bid farewell to the group after breakfast, stating she didn’t need a lift home with her mother because her future wife was on the way over to pick her up for their first date. Matt had teased her for not bringing her in to meet to meet her future in-laws, and she’d shot back that she didn’t want to steal his thunder.  
  
Claiming he had to visit the powder room, Lance managed to slip out the patio doors off the sitting room so that he could walk her to the end of the driveway and make his pitch.  
  
“Send him some of those pictures of me that Keith sent to you. He’ll be able to verify that they’re real and when they were taken.” Lance was positive that the only digital image Darrell couldn’t pull metadata off of was one he’d altered himself.  
  
Pidge shrugged. “Alright, but I’m taking a few precautions.”  
  
Lance smiled at her. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”  
  
A Honda subcompact in one of those pearlescent rose shades that were popular back in the early aughts pulled past a screen of trees and slowed down on approach to the driveway. As the car neared, a familiar pierced face leaned out of the driver’s side window to sass, “Lance I told you I only like girls.”  
  
“Ursula?” Lance grinned as Pidge looked between the two of them with a cocked eyebrow. “I promise I’m not here to horn in on your date. I was just asking Pidge for a favor because she’s a stand-up gal.”  
  
“You guys know each other?” Pidge asked.  
  
“Yeah, Ursula’s the best hotel concierge in the lower forty-eight.” Lance was extrapolating off the handful of hotels where Sadak had dragged him when he was in the mood to show him off at some fancy conference or another. Many had been more polite to his face than Ursula, but none could compare for true helpfulness.  
  
“Lance didn’t trash his room.” Coming from Ursula that was high praise.  
  
Pidge got in the car and Lance waved as they pulled away from the curb. He turned to perambulate back to the house and saw Matt waiting for him in the shade of the front porch, braced against the railing.  
  
“She’s a cool chick,” Lance said when he’d finally shuffled close enough to be heard at normal volume.  
  
“I know.” Matt took one of Lance’s hands to help him up the porch steps. “I’m related to her.”  
  
“I meant your future relation.” Lance stepped into the warmth of his body space. “But your sister’s a cool chick, too.”  
  
“Tell me about it,” Matt said before kissing him sweetly on the mouth.  
  
The others in the house let them hold each other up and smooch for a goodly little while longer.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
“...so that’s when I told him I only like girls.”  
  
Ursula’s hand was steady on the wheel but her sharp scent and wide green eyes gave away her nerves. Pidge had felt a moment of uncertainty herself when she’d realized that Lance and Ursula somehow already knew each other well enough for Lance to have aimed a flirty comment in her direction, but that must have been nothing compared to what Ursula felt when she’d coasted up the drive to find the alpha she liked standing thick as thieves with an omega prime.  
  
The laws discouraging mixed dynamic coupling were long gone, but the social conventions lingered. Pidge had witnessed its effects on her own parents, when Ma would introduce a new acquaintance to her husband and they would look past Dad, looking for the alpha, or when Dad would have to field off ignorant inquiries from near strangers as to why a beta girl wasn’t good enough for him while his family was standing right there. It had given her mixed emotions about finding a partner for a long time, until she’d taken the time to work it out for herself.  
  
“Guess that’s another thing we have in common then,” Pidge said. “I only like girls too.”  
  
Ursula gifted her with a beautiful smile and a sweetening of her buttermint scent. “There’s a flamenco exhibit at the museum today, we’re gonna have a kick-ass time.”  
  
Pidge grinned back at her. “Fuck yeah we will.”  
  
They left Allura’s neighborhood and merged into mid-morning traffic under the wide expanse of a bright blue open sky.

 


	20. Thermodynamics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance seeks equilibrium.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos. :)

 

When all was said and done, Lance wound up going home with Shiro. Agent Acciai was returning to California by train and Miranda offered to send them with her, all expenses paid. Lance knew they were taking advantage of the opportunity to keep a close eye on them for a little while longer, but it meant Shiro wouldn’t have to fly and Lance might get to spend some time with Dad, so he accepted.  
  
Keith insisted on sending them off with full bellies, making steak fajitas in his own tiny kitchen, as Allura had gone to a study session for her international law class, and Coran was going back to the Mariposa Lane house after the video conference to oversee a locksmith changing the locks and installing new deadbolts. Keith’s bistro set only had two chairs, so they dragged the task chair in from the desk in his living room and ate lunch at the little bistro table, sharing embarrassing stories as they laughed and licked hot sauce off their thumbs.  
  
Miranda and Acciai picked them up for the drive to Flagstaff. The two hour ride to the train station was a mellow contrast to recent frenetic activities, everyone in the car too drained to do more than engage in desultory conversation, only stopping once to fill Lance’s prescription at a drugstore. They arrived at the historic depot as the sky began to purple and the brick building’s yellow floodlights lit up the dusk. Miranda promised to keep them apprised of how the case was developing as he saw them off.  
  
After boarding, Acciai excused herself to get dinner in the dining car, leaving Lance and Shiro alone in the suite to figure out how to make the bunks fold out. When they had, Lance stretched out on his bunk victoriously, intending to just rest his eyes for a minute and then get up to call Matt. The felt blanket was soft against his hands crossed under the pillow, and the car’s motion on the tracks was soothing. The next time he opened his eyes it was to the sight of SoCal foothills rushing past the window under golden morning light, as Shiro gently shook his shoulder to ask him if he wanted to go to the dining car for some scrambled eggs.  
  
They parted ways with Acciai at Union Station, riding coach on a southbound intercity train to Santa Ana. Lance and Shiro both spent most of that hour engaged in text conversations with their significant others back in Arizona. They disembarked at a massive transportation center, its columns and arches blushing under the bright sun’s reflection off the red barrel rooftops, then took a taxi to the airport to pick up Shiro’s SUV.  
  
Shiro tried to teach Lance the In-N-Out Burger secret menu as they rolled up to the drive-thru. What Shiro probably did not realize was that as long as his burger had a beef patty and some cheese in a bun, Lance was going to like it. He saw ‘double meat double cheese’ on the drive-thru menu board and decided that’s what he wanted. Shiro gave him one of his patented ‘you poor culinary heathen’ looks and then told the drive-thru order taker to fry it in mustard?  
  
“Just trust me,” Shiro said, and then proceeded to order something for himself that was definitely not on the menu board.  
  
Between the two of them, they managed to decimate the french fries before they even pulled into Shiro’s driveway.  
  
“You’re not gonna park in the garage?” Not that it was Lance’s business really, but if he had a sweet ride like Shiro’s, he’d park it under shelter.  
  
“You thought I was exaggerating about the furniture, didn’t you?” Shiro laughed. “You’re seriously doing me a favor by agreeing to take it. I can’t wait to be able to park in the garage again!”  
  
They walked up the ramp Shiro had built where a terrace used to be, carrying the fast food bags and Shiro’s overnight bag. Instead of going back to Gilbert to pack a bag for Lance, Shiro had offered to let Lance borrow clothes from him, but he’d offered with that glimmer in his eye that usually meant he was planning to spring a spendy surprise on somebody. Shiro enjoyed treating people.  
  
It wasn’t like Lance had that many clothes he could have packed anyway, and he wasn’t sure if he was mentally or emotionally prepared yet to deal with whatever mess the forensics team had made of his nest.  
  
Shiro’s dining room table was still just a few feet to the left off the itty bitty front foyer. He even still had the same cherry red table runner draped across the stained maple surface. It must have been close to five years since Lance had last been in this house. He hadn’t come over to visit when he’d moved Dad earlier that year, there hadn’t been time for that then. It was sort of reassuring to see the same setup now, years later. Many things changed, but not everything.  
  
The two of them took their food to the table and fell upon it like the hungry mammals they were. Shiro was totally right about the mustard fried burger thing, it was delicious.  
  
“Do you want to visit your dad?” Shiro shook the straggler fries out of the bag and swiped one through his tri-colored milkshake. “At the center, I mean.”  
  
“You think I can get in without causing a commotion?” They had talked about maybe bringing Dad to the house for an afternoon, but if Lance could go to Dad again then he could potentially get an even longer visit than he’d hoped.  
  
Shiro smiled at him. “I think we can work out a plan.”  
  
The first plan on Shiro’s agenda, though, turned out to be the bed rest that Lance was supposed to be taking. The black IKEA bedroom suite in the guest room was the same as he remembered, but the blue-striped bed-in-a-bag set looked new. Last time the bed had been covered with a fleece blanket bearing the logo of one of Shiro’s alma maters along with some stains that looked like someone spilled ketchup on it and didn’t grab the club soda in time. He had a feeling he might be seeing that blanket again when he took home the contents of Shiro’s garage.  
  
Lance found bright orange University of Miami sweats in the dresser, changed into them and crawled into bed. He was out in seconds, dreaming of that night. Sadak grasped Matt by the shoulders, drawing him back towards his gaping mouth. Lance pulled the trigger but this time there was no bullet in the chamber. It just clicked uselessly over and over while Sadak’s teeth sank deep into the gland in the crook of Matt’s shoulder. Matt cried out for Lance in confused pain as blood trickled down to soak the neckline of his shirt. _Matt!_  
  
“Matt!”  
  
Lance shouted himself awake as Shiro rushed in from the next room. He sat on the edge of the bed and took Lance’s pulse.  
  
“Hey buddy, it’s just a nightmare, you’re okay. Breathe in for me. Hold it for five seconds. Now breathe out. That’s it, you’re doing fine.”  
  
Lance focused on his breathing until his galloping heart rate slowed to a trot.  
  
“You want to try to get some more sleep?”  
  
Lance shook his head. No. No way. The nightmare was still waiting at the back of his subconscious, he could feel it lurking.  
  
“Alright. Want to watch a movie?”  
  
Lance nodded. Maybe a distraction would make the nightmare recede, make it seem less like what had really happened and reality less like the dream.  
  
“I’ll go find us something with lots of CGI.”  
  
While Shiro went to the living room to set it up, Lance located his cell phone and texted Matt with clammy hands.

  * _Status check. U ok?_



  
The response was instantaneous.

  * _Okay here. You?_



  
Lance released a held breath in a sigh of relief.

  * _Better now_



  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
The next morning found Lance scrutinizing the contents of Shiro’s fridge, a big sleek number in black stainless steel with a k-cup coffee dispenser in the door. That k-cup dispenser was how Shiro had brewed their morning coffee before he left for work.  
  
Shiro’s idea for sneaking Lance in with nobody being the wiser involved putting Dad on a short medical isolation. Respiratory illnesses could be dangerous to patients in fragile health, so limiting access to his patient temporarily was a precaution that was unlikely to be questioned if it kept a communicable disease from circulating around the building, and wouldn’t be entirely unexpected in a patient who had just been through some recent stress.  
  
Shiro was thinking he might be able to pass Lance off as a respiratory therapist with an ear loop mask and some of his old student scrubs (which he still had because Shiro was a pack rat extraordinaire). However, he wanted to scope the mood at the center before trying to put that plan into action, so Lance was alone in the house with instructions to rest and an invitation to help himself to anything in the kitchen.  
  
There was a large coffee machine apparatus on Shiro’s kitchen counter, one of those complicated drip machines that was supposed to make the perfect cup. It was a type which Lance had also seen in Sven’s kitchen before, but Shiro’s looked way too clean to be getting regular use. Lance found a conical burr grinder and a French Press stashed under the counter, but no coffee beans either in the bins on the counter or in the pantry. Lance was pretty sure Shiro knew better than to put them in the freezer but he’d check there too because you never knew with him sometimes.  
  
Shiro’s pantry and refrigerator were stocked full of gourmet convenience foods from ALDI and Hmart, some of them still in the shopping bags. Lance also found a well-stocked wine rack and some fresh produce and dairy that he could work with. There was not much in the way of other types of fresh ingredients, though. Shiro was a gourmand trapped in a disaster cook’s body, and he’d evidently found a way to work around that.  
  
Lance opened the freezer drawer to the sight of more colorfully stacked boxes of gourmet instant dinners than he’d ever seen outside of a Whole Foods freezer section. There was also a pack of mochi ice cream, a bag of frozen fruit which Shiro had probably used in their breakfast smoothies, and huh. There was a vacuum sealed bag of coffee beans. That meant somewhere in this kitchen was a vacuum sealer. It also meant the beans were probably still fine to use in spite of Shiro sticking them in the freezer like a hipster from 1993.  
  
Lance closed the freezer drawer. He doubted Shiro was saving those beans for any reason other than that he’d decided he preferred the convenience of the k-cups but didn’t want to waste the beans, but he’d still ask permission before unsealing that bag. He wanted to do some cooking while he was here. Laying in bed was boring as hell. Shiro had encouraged him to binge some streaming TV, but the discovery of a new show wouldn’t be as much fun without a viewing buddy. He was not used to this level of inactivity at all.  
  
Shiro had just about every kitchen doodad Lance had ever been curious to try, but beyond getting to play in Shiro’s Test Kitchen, he also wanted to repay the man in some way. Good food was something he knew he could provide that Shiro might appreciate. He just didn’t see a lot of ingredients he could use for a home-cooked meal, and he didn’t want to make Shiro blow a gasket by trying to take the bus to the nearest grocer when he was supposed to be lying low on bed rest. If there was one nice thing about the Back Bay townhouse, it was access to fast delivery from any of a half-dozen high-end grocers.  
  
But maybe delivery was a possibility here too? Lance’s prepaid card had been in his jacket pocket, so he had it on him when he’d been whisked out of town. Also, there was someone he could reach out to who would definitely know about grocery delivery options in Orange County. Lance went to the guest room to get his phone. He opened up his contacts and tapped on the smiling sunshine avatar.  
  
_“Hey, hey hey! How are you doing, man?”_  
  
Lance curled up on the Barcalounger in the living room as he caught Hunk up on recent events. He had to grit his teeth through some anxious yelling. He had become benumbed enough to Sadak’s actions that he sometimes forgot how much more alarming they could be to other people. Just once though, he’d like to be able to talk to Hunk and not have to relay something bad that had happened to him lately.  
  
He was able to steer the conversation away from panic city by bringing up the TV conundrum. Hunk had lots of suggestions for shows he thought Lance would like, and they got off on a tangent about cult classic shows before finally coming back around to Lance’s grocery problem.  
  
_“Oh! It’s good that you called me. I know just the thing!”_  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
The window on Shiro’s Shaker style entrance door had one-way privacy film affixed to it, so when Lance answered the doorbell he saw the girl waiting in the recessed entry before she saw him. She was a luminously healthy brunette with a cute smile, a full canvas grocery bag at her sneakered feet, and a green t-shirt proclaiming the logo of the delivery service she worked for. He eagerly opened the door.  
  
“Hi! Shay, right?”  
  
“You must be Lance.” She held out her hand. “It’s so nice to meet you!”  
  
She smelled like horchata de coco, and Lance felt a sudden overwhelming desire for his mother’s pastelitos. He blinked to shake it off, and took her outstretched hand. “Likewise! Um, come on in.”  
  
She came in and helped him find space for espresso beans, a slab of flank steak, mollusks, olive oil and red wine vinegar, bundled aromatics, dried rice and beans, a carton of eggs and a whole broiler chicken. Between all of that and what Shiro already had on hand, he should be able to whip up some good comfort food options over the days of his visit.  
  
They chatted as she helped him put away groceries and he learned that Shay was a junior at Caltech, majoring in astronomy. Her shy reactions and the fluctuations in her expressive scent revealed that she and Hunk were quite serious about each other. Her parents were kind of old-fashioned and thought she had moved out of the dorms into Hunk’s guest bedroom but Lance was sure he would have remembered her scent if he’d caught it in that guest room. It occurred to him that she might be getting the measure of him, and he understood the impulse. From her perspective he was an unknown variable suddenly bursting into her boyfriend’s well-ordered life, so he made an effort to make himself known to her. By the time he walked her to her car he felt sure he’d made a new friend.  
  
As soon as her little Fiesta hatchback was out of sight he retrieved his phone and called up his slightly older friend. “Hey Hunk, Shay was just here and you’ll be relieved to know she’s back on the road safely. Your girlfriend is amazing, you’re a lucky guy. She’s a peach!”  
  
_“That’s funny, ‘cause she smells like panipopo to me!”_   Hunk laughed nervously. _“That’s like... that’s a sweetbread, it’s not like, a pan of poop.”_  
  
“She’s one of a kind, isn’t she?” Lance said carefully. Did he know?  
  
_“You’re killing me with the suspense here, did you notice her scent? Please tell me you noticed and I’m not crazy.”_  
  
“Oh my God, Hunk.” Lance draped himself over the slip-covered sofa. “Of course I noticed, how could I not? Is she really...?” If she was, then she was rarer than a unicorn.  
  
_“I think so? I mean, she doesn’t have heats. But she’s got just about everything else? I’m not sure if she knows. When I asked her about it she just said those traits have always run in her mother’s family.”_  
  
“Wow!” Theoretically, betas with co-dominant omega should exist. It was just, nobody had ever really met one before. If they didn’t have heats and were more likely to present in predominantly beta families, then maybe more people had met them than anybody realized. “That’s so cool! She’s great though, regardless of her dynamic.”  
  
_“I know, right? She’s super special to me, whether she is or not. I keep thinking she has a right to know, but then I think maybe she does know and just wants it not to matter.”_  
  
“She’s a smart lady,” Lance said.  
  
_“Yep.”_  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Shiro stumbled up the ramp to his front door feeling regretful. He knew he shouldn’t have left Lance home alone this late, but one emergency after another presented itself because apparently what happened when he was absent from work was everybody else lost their minds. At least with the place in circus mode he’d had little trouble lifting a visitor’s badge from Sparks’s desk. He figured if Lance needed urgent assistance he’d call because he had the number on speed dial. Shiro had made sure of it before he left for the day. The long, long day. He’d make it up him. He knew a place that could deliver excellent ceviche in less than an hour.  
  
He opened the door to the sounds of a synthesizer soundtrack coming from the living room and the tantalizing smell of simmering beef coming from the kitchen. The music stopped. Shiro looked over to his right. Lance was sprawled out in the Barcalounger with the remote in his hand, looking back at him. The television screen was frozen on attractive people standing within a halo of blue lighting.  
  
“Before you get mad,” Lance said, “I want you to know that I deliberately picked a recipe that requires slow cooking so that I wouldn’t have to stand over the stove.”  
  
Shiro looked forward and slightly to the left, past the eat-in counter, to the kitchen counter by the sink. He could see the shiny stainless steel body and red digital display of his Instant Pot plugged in beside the coffee machine that he’d never figured out how to use without causing an accidental coffee volcano.  
  
He’d never really gotten the hang of the Instant Pot, either. Everything he tried turned into meat goo, so he’d taken the goo to the center to be used up in Lance Senior’s protein shakes and stopped buying fresh meat. Which begged a question.  
  
“Where’d you get the beef?”  
  
“Don’t get mad!”  
  
Shiro felt a muscle in his cheek twitching as Lance explained how he’d let a stranger in the house, a stranger who Lance rushed to reassure him was not so much a stranger as a friend of a friend. That friend being Herschel ‘Hunk’ Garrett, who Agent Miranda had assured him was not the source of the leak that had revealed Lance’s location in Arizona to Sadak Sendak. Still, “you’re gonna need to introduce me to this Hunk guy soon.” He’d feel better about the whole thing once he’d met the man himself.  
  
“Okay!” Lance brightened. “You’ll love him, he’s as passionate about food as you are!”  
  
Lance continued to chatter amiably as he checked on the ropa vieja in the Instant Pot, and the rice cooker that Shiro hadn’t noticed was plugged in on the other side of the sink. The day’s tension began to dissolve from his trapezius muscles as he helped Lance set the table and uncorked a bottle of Rioja to accompany their dinner.  
  
“You didn’t have to do this,” Shiro felt duty-bound to say, even though he was glad Lance had done this. “I can order take-out if you don’t like frozen dinners.”  
  
“I wanted to do this,” Lance said, smiling as he accepted the half-filled wine tumbler Shiro passed him.  
  
“I just don’t want you to think you have to want to.” Shiro turned and reached into the cabinets for a serving platter to hide the fact that he realized what he just said made more sense in his head.  
  
“I get where you’re coming from,” Lance said, “but I like cooking. I do! I also like that I’ll never have to stress out over plating steak tartare ever again.” He grinned as he emptied the steaming rice into a ceramic serving bowl. “But that doesn’t mean that I never want to put a meal together with my own hands ever again.”  
  
“Steak tartare is actually delicious when done right,” Shiro replied as he transferred the ropa vieja to the serving platter. Steak tartare was so unjustly maligned. People thought it was just raw hamburger plopped on a plate with a raw egg cracked over it, but there was so much more to making it properly than that. In the right hands it was a succulent delight with no danger of food poisoning whatsoever.  
  
“I’ll take your word for it.” Lance took the serving bowl to the table. “And I’ll be thrilled to leave it to the experts from now on.”  
  
“Point taken.” Shiro followed him to the table with the serving platter. He could only dream of having the skills to safely prepare steak tartare, but that didn’t make it everybody’s dream, nor should it. “I’m glad to see you getting your confidence back. Think you’re up for pretending to be a medical professional tomorrow?”  
  
Lance looked up from spooning rice on his plate, his face a picture of excitement. “Is the sky blue?”  
  
Shiro smiled as he took the rice bowl from his hands and passed him the platter. “We’ll make it happen.”  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Shiro had been a bit less buff back when he’d been in nursing school, so his old v-necked teal scrubs fit Lance well enough that with the underscrubs adding a little extra bulk, he didn’t look like he was playing dress-up in somebody else’s clothes (even though that was exactly what he was doing). Once Lance donned the borrowed clothes, Shiro handed him a brand new pair of plain white canvas sneakers.  
  
“I picked them up on my lunch break yesterday,” he said. “Go ahead, try them on. Let’s make sure I got the size right.”  
  
“Thanks Shiro.” Lance smiled as he tried on the shoes. They fit perfectly.  
  
“You’re welcome.” Shiro smiled back and held up his travel mug. “Thanks for the coffee and breakfast.”  
  
Lance had made coffee in the French Press and whipped up a quick breakfast of fried eggs and toast.  
  
“Any time.”  
  
“You’ve got the mask?”  
  
Lance pulled the earloop mask out of a pocket on the scrubs top. “Got it.” He was going to put it on in the SUV on the way to the center.  
  
“Great. Now for the finishing touch.”  
  
Shiro took out a visitor’s badge clipped to one of his own spare lanyards and placed it around Lance’s neck. The plan was to arrive early before the day shift showed up, and leave late. A lot of the success of this sleight of hand was riding on Shiro’s reputation as a helpful and resourceful person, so that anyone who saw them would take what they saw at face value. However, anyone who thought to look closer would not find any record of an RT assigned to Shiro on the center’s clinical affiliate roster, so they couldn’t afford to push their luck for more than a day.  
  
“You still sure you want to risk your job on this? Like, one hundred percent sure.”  
  
“Lance, for the last time, your dad took a similar risk for me and I’m alive because of it. Besides, you’re not really giving your dad unsupervised medical care, this is just to let you spend time with him while keeping your anonymity intact. If it comes to having to explain myself, I will do so with a clear conscience.”  
  
Lance was looking forward to being able to visit when his alias was finally turned into a real boy, so that he could walk in through the front door and not have to hide behind a disguise that could potentially get somebody in trouble. In the meantime, he was going to cherish his one day.  
  
They arrived at the center in the predawn hours and got into the building and up the stairs without encountering any resistance. Shiro let them into Dad’s room and put the isolation sign on the outside of the door.  
  
“Morning, Lance.” It took Lance a second to realize Shiro was talking to Dad. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”  
  
Lance pulled the mask down as he walked further into the room. “Hi Dad.”  
  
Dad’s face, barely illuminated by the thin light coming in through the window, lit up with a smile. Lance sat on the edge of his bed and leaned forward to kiss his cheek.  
  
Shiro gave Dad his morning protein shake and then lifted each of his feet by the heels to run him through his daily ankle flexion exercises. Then he put on his own earloop mask to maintain the illusion that he had a patient in medical isolation and left to check on his other patient.  
  
Lance spent the rest of the morning telling Dad about everything that had happened. Dad responded with Morse code tapped out on his arm, and Lance quickly discovered what Shiro had been talking about regarding memory issues, but it was so wonderful to have a real (if slightly impeded) conversation with his dad that Lance couldn’t feel discouraged.  
  
Shiro came in a little before noon with ham and cheese sandwiches from the caf for himself and Lance, and a lunch of chicken congee and jell-O to feed Dad. They talked about good times from the past, hushed laughter like a balm against the more painful aspects of the present. When lunch was over, Shiro showed Lance how to roll Dad onto a sling and transfer him into a Hoyer Lift. They couldn’t put Dad in his wheelchair to enjoy the sunshine today, but Shiro needed to help Dad into the bathroom and he wanted to make sure Lance knew how to use the hydraulic lift for the future.  
  
Lance spent the afternoon in the room’s ergonomic recliner reading Dad one of his favorite Earthsea novels, the rhythm of the words and the warmth of the sunlight beaming in through the glass so soothing that they both fell asleep and didn’t wake until Shiro came back to run Dad through some palm stretch exercises.  
  
He’d brought bags of potato chips and another nutrient shake, and a large tablet which he set up on an overbed table so they could gather around Dad’s bed and watch a movie. It turned out to be one Dad used to love and Lance had seen a million times because of that. They recited lines together, or rather Lance recited lines and Dad tried to. Shiro seemed really happy about this, which Lance resolved to ask him about later.  
  
All too soon it was time to get Dad ready for bed. Lance helped Shiro, and then kissed his father goodnight while Shiro called the nurse’s station to tell the night shift that he was clearing Dad from isolation. They left the building during the blue hour. The dusk-to-dawn parking lights had all come on, but there was still enough light to render the sky overhead a semi-opaque expanse of lapis lazuli.  
  
Once home, they ate leftover ropa vieja with crusty bread and the last of the previous day’s wine before turning in for the night.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Sunshine sparkled over the glass-clear water of the kidney-shaped pool in Shiro’s backyard. Lance sat on the sun-warmed flagstone deck, legs dangling in the water at the bend in the pool. Idly, he ran a fingertip across the sericeous leaf of an echeveria in a planter by the pool-side, hoping the tactile input would center him.  
  
He had awoken to find a light blue swim shirt and trunks and a towel decorated with stylized palm trees folded on the foot of the bed, anchored by a notebook with Shiro’s precise handwriting on the top page. Basically, Lance was cleared for non-weight bearing exercise, so Shiro’d pulled the solar blanket off the swimming pool and highly encouraged (read: politely nagged) Lance to go and have a therapeutic swim. The swim shirt and trunks fit too well and looked too new to be hand-me-downs from Shiro. Lance wondered when he’d had the time to run out and get them for him.  
  
Somehow he’d done all this without waking Lance up before he left for work. The man could move like a cat when he wanted to. Lance contemplated the serene vision of backyard bliss before him. Shiro had added a basketball hoop to the deep end of the pool, and a beach entry to the shallow end, probably with the intent of using the pool in hydrotherapy for his patients.  
  
When Lance had last been here and waded around in the shallow end of this pool, it had still had wedding cake steps clearly showing that it was a man-made structure. Now it had a gentle incline of flagstones to match the deck, causing a line of demarcation where they bottomed out to concrete. This created a subtle illusion of natural reclamation which Lance personally did not find as charming as it was probably meant to look.  
  
“The pool is only five feet deep at the deepest point,” Lance reminded himself aloud, not for the first time since stepping foot on the back patio.  
  
He could keep his head above water no matter where he was standing in the pool. Piece of cake, right?  
  
“Right.” So why couldn’t he just push off the ledge and jump in? Jumping into Nantucket Sound had been much scarier than this. However, he’d done that knowing the alternative was going home with a man who wanted to cause him severe bodily harm. This time it was just Shiro, and all he’d get for not swimming was his disappoint face.  
  
Shiro had gone to so much trouble and Lance was being defeated by a wee swimming pool. Damn if he'd take that sitting down. He looked over his shoulder at the deck chairs where he’d already sunned himself until he started to get uncomfortably warm. Wedged in between them was a colorful beach ball, just the right size for throwing through the basketball hoop. He got up and retrieved the ball, then stepped up to the sloping entry into the water. Slowly, he advanced with the beach ball held tight to his chest.  
  
The flagstones were warm and slightly gritty under his feet, their natural heat retention extending into the water, enhancing the leftover effects of the solar blanket. The water up to his calves felt pleasantly balmy compared to the drowsy warmth of the midday sun. The beach ball became weightless as the water lapped up to his waist and the flagstones smoothly gave way to cooler concrete.  
  
Lance pushed the ball slightly ahead of himself and looked down at his underwater legs and feet, easily visible against the concrete floor. He focused on the slick plastic against his fingertips and the in/out rush of his breath. “It’s fine.” In. “It’s just pool water.” Out. “I’m okay.” In. “This is fine.” Out.  
  
He walked deeper, until he was close enough to the far edge to shoot a hoop. He shoots, he scores! He tip-toed into the deep end to retrieve the ball and thwip it back to the shallow end. Then, feeling brave, he pushed off the concrete and porpoised after it.  
  
That was probably a mistake. As soon as his head was underwater, he felt the mass of H2O suppressing his every pore. His eyes popped open in the stinging chlorinated water, his hands clawing for the surface while his breath rushed out in a flow of bubbles. His frenzied kicks sent him forward instead of up, and he got a mouthful of bleachy water before a powerful kick finally set him upright with a jolt to his heels. He surfaced coughing and stood where he was, chest deep in a backyard pool with liquid trying to exit his face through every possible orifice.  
  
Okay. So, don’t do that again. He should have known better than to tempt fate. Even when Mamá made him practice swimming she’d never forced him to learn underwater styles, only surface swimming styles and survival floating. Just for a second he’d remembered feeling free in green water with Manfredo laughing alongside him and encouraging him to keep up, but he wasn’t that little child anymore. Lance hugged himself in the water and opened himself up again to sight, scent and sound to ground his senses.  
  
Shiro had dispersed pots of echeveria at even intervals around the perimeter of the pool, several of them rosy with bell-shaped flowers. The striped deck chairs occupied the patio area in front of the covered back porch, just out of reach of its rectangular shade. Farther in the yard, foothill sedge grew in green clumps to the fence line, interrupted sporadically by the silvery fronds of Mexican Blue Palm trees. A redwood privacy fence ensured that Shiro’s rather close-packed neighbors wouldn’t be able to get a gander at the omega in the pool, at least not by chance.  
  
One of them was grilling chicken, the cumin, lime and char smells wafting on the breeze distracting Lance momentarily from the fact that most of his body was still cradled in the covetous embrace of water. Chlorine scent rose off the pool’s surface, itself an unwitting comfort because it reminded him of freshly washed sheets in a tiny hotel room in Hialeah. Maybe he’d take that broiler chicken apart with kitchen shears and use half of it to make arroz con pollo for dinner, put the other half in mojo marinade for later. The anticipation of it made him feel a little better. A plan for future action. Something to look forward to.  
  
Pool water plashed against Lance’s biceps, making a soft purling sound of displacement whenever he turned his upper body to look around. If he concentrated he could hear the pool motor running, but louder than that, he heard the grilling neighbor doing a fine rendition of “Oye Como Va,” and someone’s dog barking excitedly. His own breath whooshed in and out in a palliative rhythm, until he felt calm again.  
  
He strode forward against the water’s mild resistance and recovered the beach ball from the shallow end. This time when he tossed it to the other end of the pool, he went after it using a leisurely breaststroke, head above water.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the hard parts about rediscovering yourself after getting out of a bad relationship is working out what parts of your identity were all you all along, and what parts were imposed upon you either as what someone else wanted you to be or as a survival mechanism in that situation. It's more complicated than the movies make it seem. If I went through it in the depth it deserves this fic would never end, but I wanted to at least touch on that before bringing this to a close.


	21. Dreaming is Free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance goes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much thanks to everybody who stuck with this through to the end! There is still an epilogue coming after this, but this is the last full chapter.

 

Keith rolled up at the end of the week behind the wheel of a twelve foot Budget rental truck. When Lance flailed at him, he just shrugged and said, “Shiro arranged it,” and Shiro just smiled and said “Let me do this.” But it took seeing the actual contents of Shiro’s garage before Lance stopped feeling guilty about it.  
  
Shiro had not been overstating the case when he claimed he couldn’t park his SUV in there. Lance didn’t think he could have parked his own bicycle in there, it was so jam packed with piles of furniture and boxes covered in peeling masking tape, from front to back and floor to ceiling. There was so much stuff that Lance had to ask, “Don’t you want to sort through these first, maybe try having a garage sale?”  
  
“These things hold some nostalgic value for me, but I don’t need them anymore.” Shiro put a hand on Lance’s shoulder and looked into his eyes earnestly. “I’d feel much better if they went to family than to some stranger.”  
  
Dust got in Lance’s eyes, causing him to duck his head and dry them with his knuckles. He was totally not crying, okay? It was just a completely natural reaction to the dust bunnies escaping from Shiro’s garage like tumbleweeds across the arid plains. Then when his eyes cleared, he saw the orange floral couch that Keith was hauling into the back of the truck on a dolly and was thankful that he had a spare room to store some of these things until he could talk Shiro into selling them on ebay.  
  
They spent the rest of the afternoon emptying Shiro’s garage into the back of the truck until they just couldn’t fit anymore in there and still hope to secure the roll-up door. Shiro and Keith did most of the heavy lifting while Lance, who was still not allowed to lift more than twenty pounds, rolled in chairs on casters and carried dusty stacks of blankets. What they couldn’t fit in the truck they piled against one wall of the garage so that Shiro could finally, at long last, park the SUV under its roof. He could even open the driver’s side door easily. Huzzah! However, his passengers still had to wait for him to back out first before they could get in too.  
  
They celebrated their feat by meeting Hunk at one of his favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurants, where they ordered pizza, garlic knots, and calzones big enough to need their own zip codes. Shiro had somehow once again sneaked out to buy new clothes so that Lance had something nice to wear out to eat. Hunk and Shiro got along famously, extolling the virtues of hidden treasure restaurants all over the metropolitan area and outlining plans to double date at some future point when Keith would be in town. They left the restaurant with to-go boxes, which they noshed from later that night while Lance settled into the Barcalounger to watch one of the movies he’d missed over the last few years, and Keith and Shiro snuggled on the sofa and pretended to watch the movie.  
  
Shiro had remodeled his three bedroom, two-and-a-half bath house into a dual master with a small office. Lance remembered seeing the house in its original state, when Shiro had first moved in. He’d needed ADA enhancements for his bathroom, and it turned out to be easier and less expensive to just merge the half bath with the adjacent guest bath and connect them to the larger second bedroom with a new doorway than it would have been to add an expansion onto the existing master suite to make room for the left drain walk-in tub that he wanted.  
  
The boon of this for Lance was that he didn’t have to wander down a dark hallway to go and have a soak in the tub after the end credits rolled and everyone meandered off to the bedrooms. The original master bathroom remained intact in all its narrow, pink-tiled glory, easily accessible right off the brightly lit guest bedroom. Lance ran hot water and dumped a generous scoop of eucalyptus-scented Epsom salts in the pink enameled cast iron tub.  
  
He undressed and examined himself in the mirror over the sink. His recovering bruises were all turning yellowish-green. In another week they’d be light brown, nearly invisible on his skin tone, and then he’d never have to examine himself like this ever again. From the bedroom, his phone chimed a text alert from Matt. He went back in to check it.  
  


  * _Hey babe. What are you wearing?_ (^_−)♡



  
Lance laughed.  
  


  * _My birthday suit._ ~(=^–^)  _What are you wearing?_



  
Matt sent back a picture of his own healing face looking gobsmacked.  
  


  * _This expression._



  
After the conclusion of their nightly check-in, Lance sank into the tub, still smiling. He stretched out as much as the circumscribed space would allow, feeling his muscles loosen up from the heat, salt and the tingle of eucalyptus oil. He cupped warm water in his hands and trickled it over his chest and shoulders, enjoying the tickle of the water against his skin. His body was his own. He could DO things with it. Because he wanted to, and when he wanted to. With whom he wanted to. He pulled his knees to his chest and hid his flushed face as his stomach tightened in excitement.  
  
He couldn’t wait to go home.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
They spent the last day at Shiro’s house lounging around the pool, culminating with a lively game of one-on-one between the alphas in the deep end, which Lance refereed from a deck chair. Then he pretended to need a nap so that Keith and Shiro could play a different kind of one-on-one until dinner.  
  
Lance used up the last of the delivered groceries to make paella, and Keith used masa harina he brought from home so that he could make them sopapillas drizzled with honey for dessert. He was clearly eager to court Shiro, and Lance was happy to reap the side benefits. Keith was a pretty damn good cook.  
  
Keith and Lance set off for Gilbert the next morning, Keith looking more relaxed than Lance had seen him yet. They spent much of the ride chatting about this, that and the other thing, and eventually their idle conversation strayed to Keith’s college career. He’d decided to major in criminal justice out of an interest in the plight still faced all-too-frequently by teenage alpha women being coerced into courtship alliance schemes by their own families. Thinking of Veronica’s story, Lance was in full agreement that the issue needed more attention drawn to it. Keith still hadn’t quite made up his mind which of the several career paths that his degree opened up for him would provide the best opportunities to pursue the matter.  
  
“I’ll have enough credits for my bachelor’s in May,” Keith said. “Fucking finally.”  
  
“Are you gonna take a break after graduation?”  
  
“Maybe just for the summer. I took the GRE last month because I was seriously considering grad school.” Keith grinned. “Cal State was already on my short list. Guess I’ll look into that further. What about you?”  
  
“Me?” Maybe Keith had forgotten Lance’s whole ‘faked his death and left everything behind to live under an assumed identity’ deal.  
  
“Yeah, you.” Keith’s face took on that little pout he got when he recognized the taste of foot sandwich. “College?” He never backed down from it, though. That stubbornness would probably serve him well as an investigator, or whatever he ultimately decided on.  
  
“I have an associate degree in Human Services.” Lance fidgeted with the truck’s safety orange seat belt. “Or at least, old me did.”  
  
“Oh yeah?” Keith sounded genuinely interested, which tracked since there was a good chance he’d occasionally work with people in Lance’s former field someday. “What about new you?”  
  
Lance thought about it. He had no idea if his new identity was going to restore his old credentials in any way or not, but that didn’t change the fact that it would be a legal identity, one that would permit him to enroll anywhere that would accept his application.  
  
He smiled as his heart lifted. “I’m going back to school.”  
  
Even if he had to start all over at the very beginning that was damn sure worth smiling about.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Coran was waiting at the house on Mariposa Lane to help them unload the truck. Matt’s place next door had the dim, silent air of an empty house. Lance knew his parents had been pleading their case for him to stay at their house until his sick leave was over. He’d call Matt in a little while. He wanted to face whatever was waiting for him in his own house first, walk the halls and see if it still felt like sanctuary.  
  
Someone had hauled the filthy carpet remnants out of the carport, so that was a bright spot. Coran had new house keys to swap out for the ones on Lance’s lucky key ring.  
  
“I took a few liberties,” Coran said as he let them in through the front door. “I hope you don’t mind.”  
  
Lance braced himself. He remembered the pungent odors of gun smoke and rut, the coffee table in pieces on the floor, the dents in the wall from where he and Matt had been flung into it. There was also the hole where he’d shot the ceiling, and blood on the floor from the hole he’d made in Sadak. And that was just the living room.  
  
Sadak’s scent had been everywhere. He dreaded what he’d find in his nest. The bed’s top sheet had been taken by the police for evidence according to the list of seized items that they had given to Coran. If Sadak had done what Lance suspected he had done to that sheet then they could keep it, he didn’t want it back.  
  
When he followed Coran through the front door the first thing he registered was a soothing voice informing him that the front door was open. Pidge had expanded the house’s security setup to add door entry alerts like the ones she’d installed for Matt. The next thing he noticed was lemony freshness. Someone had come in and wiped down all the surfaces with lemon-scented cleansers. The coffee table had been removed, and the wall and ceiling had been spackled with putty. The floor looked clean as well. Maybe a blacklight would reveal the stain, but to the naked eye it was gone.  
  
“The locksmith I hired happened to know someone who cleans houses, and when she heard about the events that took place here she volunteered to lend a hand, and then it turned out that she knew a contractor who agreed to come out for an afternoon to patch the walls. It’s amazing how people will give their extra time when they discover that someone needs help and my goodness Lance, are you crying?”  
  
“It’s just so kind.” Lance felt like the luckiest person in the whole world.  
  
“Well now.” Coran patted Lance’s back. “There there.”  
  
While Keith started unloading in the carport, Coran walked with Lance through the house as he checked to make sure everything was accounted for. Lance took the opportunity to mention his ideas for a water softener, a horizontal storage shed that could be used as an enclosure for the appliances, and beadboard to visually break up the overwhelming floral wallpaper in the bedroom. Every room had seen the attention of the unknown housekeeper, who Lance intended to bake cookies for as soon as he could get the ingredients together. Nothing was missing. Even the towels in the bathroom had been washed and refolded, and piled on the towel rack instead of arranged over the towel bar. Bless that housekeeper.  
  
The only room Coran did not accompany Lance through was the master bedroom. Lance stepped inside alone to see what had become of his nest. The voile curtains had been taken down, but the branch canopy remained intact and undamaged. The housekeeper had laundered the voile and the remaining bedding and left it all folded on top of the bed frame, which still had the drawer open. Lance knelt before it and looked in.  
  
The duffel bag had been lifted out and now sat to the side with open pockets. The two letters from his mother, which he’d carefully wrapped in fresh cellophane, were gone. He’d known to expect that but their absence still made his chest ache. An unexpected discovery was a sprig of bay leaves, their sharp herbal scent rising up out of the drawer. The leaves had probably still been fresh when they’d been laid there, but were well on the way to drying out. Lance reached in and took them out of the drawer. There was a note beneath them, with two distinctly different handwriting styles displayed.  
  


_To protect against nightmares. Peace be with you, omega._

  
_Officer Bogh_

  
Of course. For luck and protection. Lance was familiar with the lore. The forensics officer who had left this could not have possibly known what else the bay laurel leaves might mean to Lance.  
  
_I wasn’t sure how you would feel about a stranger leaving a gift in your nest. As it happens, the officer who left the sweet bay is not a stranger to me, and I know he means well. So I left it here, since it will do more to erase the alpha smell and keep pests away than my cleaning solution alone. Please forgive me if I have erred._  
  
_Sincerely,_  
  
_Mirana_  
  
  
Her reasoning was understandable, and Lance was grateful for the thought. He was even more grateful that he could no longer smell Sadak in here at all. He mostly smelled lemon and bay leaves, and a trace of Coran’s scent coming in from the hall. Nevertheless, he was removing the bay sprig from his nest. The dried leaves could repel pests from his pantry instead. He took the sprig to the kitchen and threaded it to the back of a wire basket that the previous owner had mounted over the tallest shelf.  
  
Keith had made decent headway unloading the truck while Coran and Lance toured the house. The three of them brought everything inside and took the heaviest items into the rooms where they would be useful, since Lance wasn’t yet up to moving heavy furniture pieces around by himself. He decided to go ahead and leave that flowered couch in the living room after all. Now that he got a better look at it from all angles he recognized it. Shiro had used a slipcover over it at his old place in Doral. Lance could use one of Shiro’s old blankets or sheets for the same purpose, and only the people who had witnessed the couch arrive ever need know of the garish upholstery hidden underneath.  
  
Shiro had also given him his old futon mattress, which was still in good enough shape that Lance could put off buying a mattress for the time being. The prospect of putting his nest back together filled him with a strange mixture of hope and anxiety. Lance called Matt as he paced between the bed and the old wooden wardrobe which Shiro had painted in bright colors when he’d been experimenting with art therapy. Lance didn’t want to repaint it. Unlike the couch, its quirkiness was a comfort, its jewel tones a reminder of the parts of his past he didn’t want to forget.  
  
_“Hola, this is Matt! I must have been abducted by aliens. Leave me a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I’m free.”_  
  
“Hey Matt.” Lance smiled, though there was nobody to see it. “I’m back. I’m going to dinner with Coran and Keith, hopefully I’ll see you soon.”  
  
Lance changed into fresh clothes and Dad’s bomber jacket, then rejoined his friends in the living room, where he discovered them eyeballing the couch dubiously. It clashed mightily with the blue mosaic linoleum.  
  
“Where could he have gotten it?” Keith finally asked.  
  
“Yard sale probably,” Lance replied, although curb surfing was a more likely possibility. College student Shiro had been considerably less urbane than adulting Shiro had become.  
  
Coran took them out for an early dinner (“Put your wallets away, I insist”) at a cafeteria-style restaurant where Keith gave Lance a friendly ribbing for his repetitive food choices.  
  
“A cheeseburger, again?”  
  
♬ “I like mine with lettuce and tomato!” ♬  
  
“No! Don’t sing an earworm!”  
  
♬ “Heinz 57 and french fried potatoes!” ♬  
  
“I’m sorry I insulted your cheeseburger, okay? Stop singing!”  
  
After dinner, Coran returned them to the house so that Keith could pick up the truck. He was going to drop it off and then Coran would take him home. He offered to take Lance with them and bring him back the next day, which Lance politely declined. He was ready to start making the Mariposa Lane house home again. He didn’t want to wait any longer. His life had been on hold long enough.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
Lance stood back and studied his nest. He’d enhanced the futon mattress using a hilarious comforter with a giant lion face on it from Shiro’s ‘I shall wear purple’ phase, then put the waterproof mattress pad over that, and then the bottom sheet. He’d put the voile curtains back up, and placed the lumbar pillows Shiro had given him at the head of the bed. The pillow covers were in the wash along with several more items rescued from Shiro’s garage. The first load of linens should be out of the dryer any minute.  
  
He’d been right about seeing Shiro’s old stadium throw blanket with the ketchup stain on it again. He had set that aside to wash later. It would be useful for clean-up during heats.  
  
Speaking of heats, though. Did he feel comfortable spending a future heat in this nest? This was the first nest he’d ever maintained where every decision about what to put in it was entirely up to him. No husband to tell him it wasn’t allowed. No RA to tell him it was against dormitory regulations, which had not stopped him from sneaking one of Sadak’s neckties into his pillowcase. What had seemed at the time like innocent tomfoolery made him wince to think of it now. No parents informing him that they’d better not find any of Cliff’s clothes in that nest, mister. _¡No hay tutía! If I find out you’ve been courting at age sixteen I will lose what’s left of my mind!_   His parents had drawn a line in the sand between dating and courting, and made sure he toed it.  
  
The nest still needed blankets, and proper bed pillows, and a top sheet. There were blankets and sheets in the wash, and there was time to get bed pillows. The bed was quite comfy as is, with the comforter and mattress pad adding much-needed softness to the firm futon mattress. Something still felt like it was missing, though. His own scent was scarce on the fabrics, but that would build up as he slept in the nest over the coming days. When he’d still lived at home he’d liked layering Mamá’s and Dad’s scents in his nest, and in the dorms his roommate Malory’s scent provided solace.  
  
Malory Côté. There was a name he hadn’t thought of in a while. He hadn’t seen her since his wedding day, and chances were that he’d never see her again. He thought he’d already let go of their friendship, back when he’d realized his marriage was a trap and he was the rabbit, but now he felt like he was letting her go once more, along with everyone else he’d known before who had become too dangerous to contact since he’d agreed to testify.  
  
Lance tried to get a literal hold of himself by grasping his own forearms. _Enough moping kid, life’s too short_.  The nest, what was missing? Shiro’s scent was faint but present, along with Keith’s and Coran’s from helping lug the mattress inside. He’d put Dad’s bomber jacket away in the drawer compartment to add his scent. What else?  
  
_“Front door open.”_  
  
Lance scooted into the hall with his thumb hovering over the panic button app newly installed on his phone and peered around the corner towards the front door.  
  
“-why you never even bother to knock first.”  
  
“You’re the one who wanted to come right over without calling ahead.”  
  
Lance slumped against the wall in relief. There were Holts in his house.  
  
“Spock’s eyebrows, what is that?”  
  
And they’d spotted his couch. A smile tugged on Lance’s lips as he pushed himself off the wall and moved into the living room to greet them. He was happy to see them even if they did give him a momentary fright and then cast aspersions on his furniture. “Welcome to the shrine of Shiro’s zany decorating choices. Feel free to leave an offering in the couch cushions. Oh, nice boots.”  
  
“Thanks.” Pidge grinned back at him. “I’m taking Ursula night hiking and my offering to you is this advice: let that couch decorate your curb.”  
  
“I copy, but I think I’m just gonna cover it up for now.” Lance leaned into Matt’s body space, taking in the warmth in his clear eyes. “Hey you.”  
  
The bruising around Matt’s eye had turned yellow, still quite visible on his fair skin but much lower contrast than the red and purple had been. The swelling was completely gone.  
  
“Hey yourself.” Matt reeled him closer to steal a kiss.  
  
“And on that note, I take my leave of you.” Pidge rearmed the house alarm and stepped back out the door to the front walk. “Have fun trying to make out on that mockery of a sofa, and if Ma calls tell her you took the bus home.”  
  
“Wanna make out on my ugly couch?” Lance waggled his eyebrows at Matt as he closed the front door after his sister.  
  
“I wanna make out with you everywhere.” Matt pulled him in and indulged in another kiss. “But if we start on the couch, can we fix it up first? I keep thinking bats are gonna fly out of it.”  
  
“Well we can’t have that. It’s not even October yet.”  
  
They took a set of sheets out of the dryer that had a far less obnoxious floral print on them, and folded and tucked until the trippy orange flowers were out of sight. Then they set up the old picture tube TV with the built-in DVD player on the scarred side table, and spent a couple of minutes looking through the plastic storage bin of Shiro’s old DVDs before deciding on _Torchwood_.  Miracle of miracles, the DVD player built into the old TV still worked and the _Torchwood_ discs had not warped in Shiro’s garage.  
  
Matt reclined across a textile field of blue peonies and Lance lounged against his side. He grew intensely aware of Matt’s body heat radiating past two layers of clothes from chest to thigh, and of his fingertips idly stroking up and down Lance’s spine. Tension receded from Lance’s shoulders to coil in his belly. Captain Harkness was flirting with another member of his team on the TV screen when Lance tilted his head up and saw that Matt was already watching him with eyes like candle glow. Lance leaned up to close the distance between them lip to lip, rolling his body to bring them hip to hip.  
  
Warm hands ran up Lance’s sides under his shirt as a warm mouth opened under his own. Lance braced himself on his forearms and pressed their hips together just so. Matt groaned against his lips, and Lance was gratified to feel a hard ridge through his jeans, pressing back against his own. He rocked down harder. Matt rocked up. They found a rhythm that quickly set Lance’s nerves aflame, arousing vivid mental images of what this might be like without all the pesky clothes in the way.  
  
Matt must have been on the same wavelength because he suddenly retreated from the kiss with reddened cheeks. “If we keep doing this I’m gonna cum in my pants,” he said, sounding regretful.  
  
Lance had the most amazing idea ever. “Let’s get rid of our pants.”  
  
“Uh, whuh?”  
  
“Come on!” Lance jumped up and pulled Matt up off the couch with him.  
  
“Are you sure?” Matt asked as Lance led him into the master bedroom.  
  
“Oh yes.”  
  
Now he was one hundred percent positive about what had been missing from the nest. Mirana’s A+ cleaning job had removed it along with all of the other scents that had been in the room. He needed Matt’s scent back in that bed, and if he could have Matt in there too, that was even better.  
  
But maybe he was going too fast, which wouldn’t be the first time in his life. He stopped in front of the nest and turned to Matt. “Do you want to? You don’t have to get naked just because I want to.”  
  
Matt’s response to this was to start ripping off his shirt.  
  
“I’m gonna take that as a yes.” Lance started rustling out of his own clothes.  
  
“That’s a definite yes.”  
  
In the next few minutes nudity was achieved and Lance was climbing on top of Matt in the nest. He looked down into Matt’s flushed face, hair tousled and eyes ablaze, and caressed creamy skin over firm muscles as Matt’s palms smoothed up his thighs to rest low on his hips. He smelled like sweet fresh rain in Lance’s bed.  
  
“God, you’re beautiful.” Matt’s fingers dipped lower yet, behind and underneath, feeling the wetness there. “How are you already so slick?”  
  
“I’m a prime.” Lance ground down against the hardness beneath him; Matt bit off a curse, hands reflexively tightening on Lance’s pelvis. “And I want you.”  
  
“You got me,” Matt said. He held still and watchful with owl-wide eyes as Lance reached between them to guide his erection to the soft, slick place between his legs.  
  
Lance bit his lip as the cockhead breached him, and he took him by inches. Matt filled him exactly the way he’d imagined, hot and perfect. He sank down until he felt the crinkle of pubic hair brushing his inner thighs. He hovered there, feeling the solidity of their connection. Then he rose and sank down again as Matt started letting out those throaty noises that drove Lance crazy, his shower of scent intensifying to a torrent.  
  
Lance set the rhythm, rising and falling over and over, his quadriceps burning with the effort. Matt’s hands cupped his ass, lifting on the upstroke and squeezing on the downstroke. Faster, faster. He felt like bottled lightning. Lance could feel his walls clamping tight as he chased the sensation higher, higher. He took himself in hand in time to his strokes and the pleasure built to a blinding intensity. “Oh, oh I think I’m gonna...”  
  
“Yes!”  
  
The pressure stoked to an impossibly bright point before abruptly letting go in an endless loop of ecstatic contractions. Lance rode it out, wringing his other pleasure center in his hand until his balls tightened and he released all over Matt’s taut belly.  
  
“Holy... fucking...” Matt suddenly thrust up erratically. “Oh my God...” He stilled. Lance could feel his pulse throbbing inside of him as ejaculate surged in vain hope of finding an egg to fertilize.  
  
Lance had heard of rare instances where a male omega was thrown into heat by a partner, but those were always mated pairs in extraordinary circumstances. Lance and Matt were not mated (yet) and these circumstances were gloriously domestic, like he’d nearly lost hope of ever knowing for himself. It was incredible that he got to have this. His heart was full, his emotions welled to overflowing.  
  
“Baby?” Matt reached up to thumb a tear from Lance’s cheek. “Are you okay?”  
  
Lance nodded emphatically. “Happy,” he said. “I’m so happy.”  
  
Matt smiled, eyes soft. “Me too.”  
  
Lance climbed off his lap and lay down beside him. Matt held him close as they drifted off together in the cool comfort of Lance’s freshly made nest, their combined scents encircling them like a sacred grove.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
They slept, woke and made love again, and slept again all the way through to morning. When they got up Lance made colada and Matt made fried eggs with toast. They ate their breakfast and then took their coffee out into the backyard to look over Lance’s gardening project and talk. Thankfully, it looked like nothing had been disturbed back there aside from some trampling over the grass.  
  
Matt wasn’t officially off medical leave yet, but he wanted to video chat with his department chair and check his email to see if any of his History of Zarzuela students had sent him rough drafts of their midterm papers. This would be about the time that the early birds would start asking for advice on how to proceed, and he was in a unique position to give them some undivided attention since he wasn’t yet cleared to return to campus.  
  
Lance wanted to harvest some more of the purslane in the porch planters, and finish washing and folding the linens that had come from Shiro’s place. Coran had called to report a tentative date for the preliminary hearing three weeks out. He’d also sent pictures of sheds for Lance to sort through, along with contact information for Kari Ryner so that she could give a recommendation on the water softener. It was looking like a day of puttering around the house in store for both of them.  
  
Pidge had left them both voice mails warning them that the rest of the Holt family was coming over with food later, so neither of them had better make any dinner plans. Apparently Sam and Colleen wanted to meet Ursula, and Pidge had somehow finagled that event into a family dinner at Matt’s house. She told them they didn’t need to bring any food, just themselves, but Lance had ingredients for rice pudding and there was no such thing as too many desserts.  
  
Lance walked Matt to the backyard gate, where he found that Coran had switched out his fork latch for a lockable slide bolt latch.  
  
“Meet you for lunch in a bit?”  
  
“You bet.” Matt kissed him and drew back to look into his eyes. “I love you.”  
  
Lance smiled at the tender feeling warming him up from the inside. “I love you too.”  
  
This was a messier life than the glossy pictures from his long ago daydreams, full of dusty corners, awkward moments and half-realized plans, and far, far away from any of the places he’d ever thought he’d land. But it was his messy life lived on his own terms, and somehow that made it all the sweeter.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No hay tutía - "There is no remedy," an idiom used to express that something is not going to happen.


	22. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos, and thanks for reading!

 

“It’s so lovely, I’m tempted to shanghai a groomsman and get married myself.” Allura clasped her hands together as she gazed out the window at the busy yard.  
  
Lance stood next to her looking over her lacy shoulder. “You did an amazing job.”  
  
“I can’t take all the credit. Everyone pitched in.”  
  
Everyone had pitched in, to wonderful effect. The Holts had turned Allura’s enormous backyard into a springtime wonderland. Hunk and Shay had set out light hors d’oeuvres for the wedding party and any early arriving guests to munch on, and had an even more impressive spread planned for the reception dinner. Coran had accomplished a staggering amount of tasks, with help from Pidge and Lance.  
  
As if summoned like a sprite, Pidge wandered into the kitchen and snatched up a fruit kebab from the counter. “He’s trying to get into the dressing room again,” she said, sliding a strawberry off the skewer and popping it in her mouth. “You’re up.”  
  
He and Pidge were dressed nearly identically in rolled-up shirt sleeves with cream tuxedo vests and trousers, champagne rose boutonnieres, and silk neckties. Her tie was pastel green, his was pastel blue.  
  
Lance pointed finger guns at Pidge. “I got this.” The round-cut aquamarine sparkled on his left hand, drawing the attention of both alphas in the room. They’d noticed earlier and he’d dodged their questions thus far, deflecting on how it looked nice with the tie, right?  
  
“You know you can tell me anything, right Lance?” Allura loved good-news gossip like a mouse loved cheese.  
  
“Nope,” he said as he picked up the Old Fashioned that he’d come in to make, “not today. Ask me tomorrow when they’re on their honeymoon.”  
  
“We will!” Pidge promised.  
  
Lance took the stairs quickly but carefully so as not to spill the drink, and hit the second floor landing to find what Pidge had warned him about: Shiro knocking on the door of the manly desert guest room. “C’mon honey, open up. I just want to see!”  
  
Keith’s voice came through loud and clear from the other side of the door. “It’s bad luck!”  
  
“Hey big guy, got something for ya.” Lance strode forward and slung an arm across Shiro’s shoulders, guiding him away from the closed bedroom door. “To your health.”  
  
Shiro’s tuxedo matched Lance’s and Pidge’s except that he was wearing the jacket, along with a red rose boutonniere and a silver bow tie. He took the cocktail from Lance and knocked it back like a tequila shooter.  
  
“Well alright then.”  
  
“I just want to see him.”  
  
“And you will.” Lance drew Shiro towards the stairs. “In T-minus twelve minutes, fourteen seconds.”  
  
Lance kept up a steady hum of soothing chatter as he got Shiro to slowly walk with him down the stairs, out of the house into the backyard, through a gauntlet of mingling well-wishers, and under the pergola where Coran was already waiting with another bourbon, served neat. He was dressed to refinement in a white morning suit with a gold bow tie, and carrying a gilded red binder under his arm which presumably contained the vows and the marriage license. In his capacity as a minister of the Universal Life Church, Coran would be officiating the ceremony.  
  
Shiro snatched the tumbler out of Coran’s hand and tipped his head back, but Coran recaptured the bourbon before he could toss it down the hatch like he had the last one.  
  
“That is for sipping, young man.”  
  
Shiro grumbled but agreed to slow his roll so that Coran would give him the booze back. “I don’t know why he won’t let me see him. That bad luck thing is just a superstition.”  
  
“I don’t believe seeing him before the ceremony will cause bad luck either,” Coran replied, “but Keith does and we should respect that.”  
  
Shiro’s brows furrowed like he wanted to argue the point, but he sipped his bourbon. The Throne Room music from Star Wars began playing over the sound system Matt had rigged up in the yard.  
  
“That’s just to alert the guests to put down the finger food and take their seats,” Lance reminded Shiro, because he was looking like he wanted to chug-a-lug 80 proof again. If he let Shiro walk down the aisle shit-faced, Keith would surely kill him.  
  
Sure enough, Matt, Allura, Sven and Darrell began ushering guests to the ribbon-festooned folding chairs set up in rows before a flower-bedecked wedding arbor opposite the pergola. Lance indulged in a moment to watch his honey work. Matt’s bright hair made an appealing contrast to the cream-colored vest and Kelly green tie. Matt noticed him watching and winked. Lance blew him a kiss and he caught it.  
  
“Whose wedding is this again?” Shiro asked, but he was smiling now.   
  
Lance blushed. “Yours.”  
  
The sound system switched over to Vivaldi’s Spring Concerto from “The Four Seasons” as Darrell and Allura led the procession arm-in-arm. Darrell’s tie was hunter green, while Allura had opted for a pink dress with a cream lace overlay instead of a suit. If Lance’s eyes did not mistake him there was some prime matchmaking potential happening between those two. Then Matt glided suavely up to him with his arm out.  
  
“Enchanté.” Sunlight sparked off the golden beryl on Matt’s ring finger. “Fancy meeting you here.”  
  
Lance took his arm. “Yes, fancy that.”  
  
“Fancy moving it along?” Shiro and Coran were queued up right behind them.   
  
Shiro’s nerves seemed to be making a comeback. They moved it along, taking their places in front of the arbor. Behind Shiro and Coran walked Pidge and Sven. Like Allura, Sven had opted for a variation on the style the attendants were all wearing, choosing a stand-up collar with no tie.   
  
Presently everyone was in place save two, and the music changed again.  
  
♬ _Darling, you send me, I know you send me.._ ♬  
  
Keith’s mother, Kesare Rosalia (“Call me Krolia, everyone does”), stepped out from under the pergola, a vision of self-possessed grace in a dress similar to Allura’s, but lavender instead of pink. On her arm was Keith, and everyone in attendance seemed to gasp as one at the sight of him. The towering blonde Keith had introduced as Kolivia exclaimed, “My baby!” Lance honestly thought Shiro might faint, and that was what prompted him to murmur, “Told ya you’d see him.”  
  
Shiro’s back straightened in fleeting irritation. One groom face-plant successfully averted.  
  
♬ _...marry you and take you home, woah.._. ♬  
  
Lance had been in on the surprise that Keith had decided to wear a wedding dress, but this was his first time seeing it on Keith. He’d chosen a traditional ball gown style which he was wearing in an unconventional way. The form-fitting bodice had a deep plunging neckline. Keith was wearing it without any chest enhancements, highlighting his masculine torso beautifully. Instead of balancing a full bosom, the voluminous skirt balanced his broad shoulders. Keith had pulled his hair up into a messy bun secured with a tiara. And the part Lance specifically had a hand in: he’d taught Keith every makeup trick he knew for enhancing androgynous facial features. Keith, whose proficiency with makeup tools eclipsed Lance’s own to begin with, had put the lesson to good use.  
  
Krolia handed her son off to Shiro and took her seat in the front row. Keith’s scent was not only unblocked, he’d opted to complement it with sandalwood. He and Shiro beamed at each other as their scents commingled and the processional music faded out.  
  
“Dearly beloved,” Coran began the ceremony, “we are gathered here today to witness the joining of these two souls in that blessed arrangement referred to for legal purposes as marriage.”  
  
The ceremony continued apace. Keith and Shiro exchanged heartfelt vows and if there was a dry eye in that backyard then that person must have needed to have their thyroid checked. Then there was a vow about remembering to salt the pasta water that Keith delivered with inscrutable calm and Shiro agreed to honor with a notable lack of chill. The way Shiro was looking at Keith, he’d have probably agreed to dye his eyebrows to match his floof if Keith asked him to.  
  
“Bring forth the rings, that you may place them on each other’s hands.”  
  
Lance reached into his vest pocket and withdrew the mokume-gane ring. Across from him, Pidge was doing the same thing. The mixed metals in the wedding bands swirled together like fire and smoke. Shiro fumbled with the ring hand-off, his hands more slippery than Lance had anticipated (why had he forgotten to make Shiro put baby powder on his hands?!?) and for a long moment Lance feared he’d have to take a nosedive into the grass to retrieve it, but Shiro recovered like a champ and then he put that ring on Keith’s finger.   
  
“I now pronounce you married! You may seal it with a kiss.”  
  
They did, for long enough to generate tittering and then applause from their guests.  
  
After the ceremony commenced a reception that would be remembered fondly by friends and family for years. The newlyweds had wanted dancing before dinner instead of after, and Shiro in particular had wanted to serve both of the traditional cakes so that they could have one before and the other after dinner. Hunk rolled out the first cake, a three-tiered masterpiece frosted in rosettes. Keith and Shiro fed each other pineapple-infused slices, and then took a spin around the yard giving off an ecstatic combined scent like cinnamon incense.   
  
The other members of the wedding party followed suit, and then all of the guests. Allura was letting Darrell fill up her dance card, Lance was so totally right about them. Maybe he could talk Ursula into shuffling the seating chart for dinner so that they would be table neighbors. He could bargain with letting Pidge deliver the first toast, he knew she was dying to go first.  
  
“May I have this dance?”  
  
♬ _...baby you’re so sweet, you know you could have been some honey._ ♬  
  
Lance turned from plotting to fix up his friends in favor of devoting some attention to his fiancé. It was still their poorly-kept secret, though that probably wouldn’t last another twenty-four hours with Pidge determined to make them squeal. The way Colleen was looking at them from across the yard, they might not even last ‘til the ‘just married’ sign on Shiro’s rear windshield was completely out of sight.  
  
“I’d be delighted.”  
  
♬ _...could have been anything that you wanted to, and I can tell..._ ♬  
  
Matt led them onto the patch of lawn that was being used as a dance floor as the Temptations sang on the playlist he’d help curate. He was the best lead Lance had ever danced with, making even the most complicated steps feel effortless. Through everything that had happened over the past nine months - testifying against Sadak, reconnecting with his family’s oldest friends who’d thought he was dead, starting his first semester back in college after years away - Matt had been steadfast beside him through it all. Now Dad was ready to move into an assisted living suite at the NeuroRecovery center, Sadak was indicted and incarcerated, and Lance was twelve credit hours closer to his longed-for bachelor’s degree. He’d made new friends and watched one of his old friends find true happiness.  
  
All the while he’d been finding his own.  
  
“You’ve been on your feet for hours.” Matt pulled Lance into a close embrace. “I haven’t seen you sit down once. How are you feeling?”  
  
“I’m feeling like a lucky man.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Standard disclaimer applies: I am not making any money off any of the properties used for this fan-fiction, it just took over my brain and I had to write it all down.


End file.
